New plan promotes rural industry

How do you assess the development of typical rural industrial products at the regional and national levels?

The selection of typical rural industrial products in recent years has achieved remarkable results, providing the basis for state agencies to devise support programs for rural industrial establishments in order to develop production and promote trade.

Specifically, the MoIT has supported exhibition stalls of 450 establishments at a Hanoi fair introducing typical rural industrial products. It also helped 48 establishments to build and register their trademarks, and 330 establishments to build websites for the purpose of promoting, introducing and selling products. The ministry has also organized conferences to connect supply and demand, creating opportunities for establishments to penetrate distribution chains. More than 300 out of 1,119 typical rural industrial products on the regional and national levels have been put into the nationwide distribution networks such as BigC, Hapro, Vinmart and Lotte Mart.

The plan mentions the role of e-commerce and the digital economy, but funding to implement the operation is a difficult issue. How will funding be mobilized?

The purpose of the plan is to implement synchronous support for the development of typical rural industrial products, including the use of e-commerce and the digital economy. Online support solutions help build brands, promote products, expand domestic markets, enhance online transactions, find export opportunities and trace the origin of typical rural industrial products.

The MoIT’s Finance and Business Innovation Department will estimate the implementation cost on an annual basis and report to relevant authorities for allocation, prioritizing appropriate funding for programs to support development of typical rural industrial products.

At present, the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting the consumption of goods. How will this affect typical rural industrial products? What are the Agency for Regional Industry and Trade’s recommendations for enterprises?

Typical rural products are selected according to the priority placed on using more local and domestic raw materials and less imported materials for production. Therefore, the epidemic is hardly affecting production and trade in these products.

However, as the pandemic period has shown, instead of selling according to traditional trading methods, enterprises can gradually switch to online sales and export through major e-commerce sites, promoting greater efficiency. The MoIT has signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation with Amazon Global Selling to support Vietnamese small and medium enterprises in selling goods on Amazon. The program has provided practical support for establishments seeking to change the way they market typical rural industrial products.