Effective cooperatives crucial for agricultural restructuring: Deputy PM

Effective cooperatives and the development of collective economic sectors have not only helped to create jobs, improve the lives of farmers and stabilise the political situation in rural areas but have also played a crucial role in the agricultural sector’s restructuring process.

Delegates at the conference (Photo: VGP)

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue made the remark while chairing a conference held in Hanoi, on January 20, by the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance (VCA) to review its performance in 2017 and set out its tasks for 2018.

He noted with pleasure that there were 2,226 newly-established collectives in 2017, up 46.5% against 2016, 51% of which are agricultural collectives.

The country now has 19,000 collectives and 40% of them are operating fruitfully, four times higher than the figure in 2012 when the Cooperative Law took effect, he cited.

However, he pointed out that the collective economic sector is still recording a slow growth rate and contributes only 4% to the country’s GDP each year; therefore, he called on the VCA to roll out measures to fully and effectively develop the sector.

He asked the alliance to continue promoting its role as a representative body of co-operatives, while protecting the legitimate rights and interests of its members in order to ensure the number and quality of collectives.

He also called for the establishment of the Supporting Fund for Collectives from central to local levels, as 16 localities in the country have not yet received the fund, as well as closer coordination between the VCA and the functional ministries and sectors to improve the performance of collectives.

(Source: NDO)