by NDO 28/06/2025, 02:00

Agriculture creates breakthroughs from private sector

Viet Nam’s agricultural sector is facing many challenges from climate change, changing consumer trends to market fluctuations.

Using drones to spray pesticides in Thap Muoi District, Dong Thap Province. (Photo: MINH ANH)
Using drones to spray pesticides in Thap Muoi District, Dong Thap Province. (Photo: MINH ANH)

To adapt and bring agriculture to a breakthrough in the new growth cycle, private enterprises are playing an increasingly important role in forming value chains, investing in technology, deep processing, developing green agriculture, and connecting to the global market.

The Politburo’s Resolution No.68-NQ/TW (dated May 4, 2025) on private economic development clearly states that the private economy is the most important driving force of the national economy, and at the same time proposes many tasks and solutions for the private economy to develop rapidly, strongly and sustainably in the coming time.

Leading the production and export value chain

As a leading shrimp enterprise in Viet Nam, contributing a large amount of value to the country's shrimp export turnover every year, Minh Phu Seafood Corporation is focusing on completing a closed value chain, from breeding and farming to processing and exporting.

Le Van Quang, General Director of Minh Phu Seafood, said the company will implement concentrated farming area projects with full infrastructure for water supply and drainage and technical services.

In addition, developing a shrimp processing complex near the raw material area to improve shrimp quality and reduce costs of preservation, transportation and post-harvest loss, towards a highly specialised production model.

The complex will apply artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, combined with a smart mobile application (Mobile App) to manage the entire shrimp farming process.

According to the Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the country's seafood export turnover reached 4.11 billion USD in the first 5 months of 2025, an increase of 15.1% over the same period in 2024; striving to reach the 11 billion USD mark for the whole year. This depends largely on the ability of businesses to access and expand markets.

Ho Quoc Luc, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sao Ta Food Joint Stock Company, said that in just the first 2 months of the second quarter of 2025, Sao Ta has exported 3,742 tons of products, mainly seafood, marking an increase of more than 31% over the same period in 2024, with revenue of nearly 45 million USD, an increase of 41%.

In the first quarter of 2025, Sao Ta and its subsidiaries exported more than 46 million USD to the US. “In addition to the US market, we are currently increasing our penetration into other markets such as Canada, Australia, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. China is also a very potential market that we are monitoring to be ready to enter,” Luc emphasised.

In addition to the key export industry of seafood, the rice industry is also changing strongly when in 2024, rice exports reached a record of 9.18 million tons with a turnover of 5.75 billion USD.

Once again, private enterprises trading and exporting rice have shown a clear role in both production and consumption. Most recently, in early June 2025, Trung An High-Tech Agriculture Joint Stock Company exported the first batch of rice branded “Green Vietnamese Rice with Low Emissions” from Viet Nam to the Japanese market.

This is a batch produced according to the standard process of the project on sustainable development of one million hectares of high-quality and low-emission rice cultivation associated with green growth in the Mekong Delta by 2030.

According to Pham Thai Binh, chairman of the company’s board of directors, although the company has exported rice to Japan for a long time, this batch has a special meaning, opening a new direction for the company and for the entire Vietnamese rice industry in conquering the low-emission rice segment that is of great interest to consumers around the world.

Expecting a “new wind”

One of the tasks and solutions that Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW has proposed to develop the private economy is to promote and diversify capital sources for the private economy through developing green credit on the basis of the state having a mechanism to support interest rates and encourage credit institutions to reduce interest rates for private enterprises to borrow to implement green circular projects and apply the environmental, social, governance (ESG) standards framework; as well as to encourage financial and credit institutions to provide capital for private enterprises operating in value chains and supply chains.

This is something that many pioneering enterprises in the field of green agriculture and circular agriculture are very interested in. Thai Van Chuyen, General Director of Thanh Thanh Cong Joint Stock Company (TTC AgriS), said that circular agriculture and high-tech agriculture models require long-term investment resources, but currently, access to medium and long-term capital or preferential financial packages specifically for this field is still limited, especially for the linkage model between enterprises and farmers and cooperatives.

From the perspective of Le Van Quang, General Director of Minh Phu Seafood Corporation, Resolution No.68-NQ/TW has created an important "push", liberating resources and entrepreneurial spirit of the private business community. The company is looking forward to policies to support the development of industry clusters, especially supporting industries, agricultural and food processing, and creative industries to be put into practice.

The company is currently proposing to consider piloting investment in a green urban industrial park towards a circular economy for the seafood industry. There are seafood processing factories, supporting industrial factories, and workers' housing areas.

With the view that if Viet Nam’s agriculture is to develop, there must be a policy mechanism to promote the construction of production and processing factories in this field in localities, Phan Minh Thong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Phuc Sinh Joint Stock Company — a company specialising in the production and export of coffee and pepper, said that previously, a start-up business could build a factory within about 3-4 years, but now it is very difficult because it requires a huge amount of money.

Therefore, private enterprises need support policy mechanisms to build production and processing factories because this is the foundation for business activities. From there, a sustainable agricultural ecosystem will be created, jobs will be created for local workers and agricultural business activities from Viet Nam to the world must be deployed.

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