Strong capital inflows boost food processing, agriculture firms

This year marks a stronger move of capital flows into food processing. Specifically, total foreign investment in Vietnam’s food processing sector has hit the US$11.2-billion mark, spread across 717 projects and excluding mergers and acquisitions, while domestic businesses have poured nearly VND11 trillion into 17 modern processing plants for fruit and vegetables, cattle and poultry.

Many businesses in the Mekong Delta region have invested in food processing. For example, the Lavifood Joint Stock Company has invested VND1.78 trillion in a processing plant with total annual capacity of 60,000 tonnes of finished products, focusing on processing frozen fruit products, juices and dried fruits.

The Vina T&T Group has invested more than VND50 billion in the first phase of an export coconut processing plant with capacity of 25 million coconuts each year. In addition, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has poured about US$8 million into the Vietnam-based Nafoods Group to enable the company to expand a farm produce processing plant in Long An Province and build a fresh fruit packing base in the Central Highlands region.

In partnership with New Zealand and Slovakia, IFC will also work with the company’s fruit farmers and suppliers in Vietnam over the next 18 months to help them conform to global sustainable farming standards and practices. International certifications such as Good Agricultural Practices (GlobalGAP), Rainforest Alliance, and Fair Trade will help Nafoods Group farmers grow high-quality and sustainable fruit, expanding access to new export markets.