Collective economy key to growth

At the same time, ties among co-operatives would be promoted to form associations or unions, he said.

To develop the collective economy with a core of co-operatives, it is necessary to consider the collective economy one of the four important economic components in the socialist-oriented market economy, Dung said.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister, in 2010-2020, the collective economic sector, as well as co-operatives, continued development in almost all fields, making important contributions to economic growth. However, the collective economic sector and co-operatives still have many difficulties and limitations that need to be solved.

He said the collective economy and co-operative development had been below potential, with slower growth rates than other economic sectors and a contribution to GDP that had not reached expectations.

Mechanism and policies and their implementation by State management agencies and co-operatives were part for the problem, he said, adding that there was a lack of specific guidance for implementing some provisions of laws relating to the collective economy and co-operatives or the guidance was not feasible.

Speaking at the forum, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong said since the Law on Cooperatives 2012 was issued, a new co-operative model had initially gained success in production and business, contributing to perfecting production chains.

In recent years, amid international economic integration and increasing market competition, the global and Vietnamese economies had many uncertainties with limited budgets, but the co-operative sector had still operated stably, he said.

The development of cooperatives contributed to the development of the collective economic sector and also increased the income of each inpidual of those co-operatives.

Trang Thi Xuan, Vice Chairwoman of the Son La People's Committee, said despite the domestic economy facing many difficulties in recent years, the co-operative sector in Son La enjoyed stable production.

In 2019, co-operatives producing fruits exported 20,795 tonnes of fruit to major markets including EU, US and Australia. Meanwhile, co-operatives producing organic agricultural products had created many jobs and increased income for local people, she said.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Tu Anh, director of the General Economic Department under the Central Economic Committee, said co-operatives had a very important role in domestic economic development, especially amid climate change, natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anh said Vietnam needed policies to adapt to climate change for co-operatives in agriculture, forestry, tourism, industry and construction. It also needed to improve co-operatives’ management ability.

Also at the forum, many agricultural experts said global trade had seen dramatic changes and trade wars between major powers had been unexpected developments. In addition, trade protectionism and the COVID-19 pandemic were creating negative impacts on all economies.

However, they said domestic co-operatives needed to work together and with enterprises in other sectors to improve production efficiency and income, approach modern production technology, and expand export markets.