Harvesting rice in Kim Sơn District of the northern province of Ninh Bình. — VNA/VNS Photo Minh Đức

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam will strive to be among the world’s top 15 most developed countries in agriculture by 2030 with agricultural processing to rank in the world’s top 10.

The goals were set in Government Directive No25/CT-TTg, setting out several tasks and solutions to develop the processing industry of agro-forestry-fishery products and mechanisation of agricultural production issued on Thursday.

The directive has also set a target for Việt Nam to become a deep processing and logistics centre of the global agricultural trade.

Although in recent years, the mechanisation of agriculture and processing industry has achieved remarkable achievements, the development has not matched the inherent potential of the agricultural sector and strengths of many localities, stated the directive.

The Prime Minister requested ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government-attached agencies, and chairs of people's committees in localities to work on their assigned functions and tasks to focus on directing, implementing orientations on promoting the development of processing industry and agricultural mechanisation.

The Prime Minister asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) to review previously promulgated plans related to agricultural mechanisation and processing industry to integrate into national sector planning, regional planning, provincial planning; co-ordinate with ministries, sectors and localities in formulating and submitting for approval national plans in the 2021-30 period as assigned according to the Law on Planning, including the content of development of agricultural mechanisation and processing industry.

The MARD was specifically requested to promptly build projects to develop the agricultural processing industry, striving to rank among the world’s top five countries in the processing of vegetables, tubers, fruits, seafood, wood and wood products. These projects must be submitted to the Prime Minister in the fourth quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, the progress of key projects in agricultural processing should be accelerated in alignment with promoting the productivity of current processing plants to serve demand for domestic consumption and export.

The MARD is also directed to coordinate with the Ministry of Science and Technology to implement the national technology innovation fund and the national product development programme to support enterprises in improving agricultural processing and preservation technologies.

The two ministries are also assigned to build a set of criteria for evaluating the capacity of the agricultural processing industry and agricultural mechanisation.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade will work with MARD to implement solutions to make good use of opportunities from signed free trade agreements, especially the European Union-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), for processed agricultural products.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment will balance and allocate investment capital for development of a project on three branches of processing vegetables-fruits, aquatic products, timber and wood products after being approved by competent authorities in accordance with the Law on Public Investment and in accordance with the medium and annual public investment plan. — VNS