A booth showcases Bến Tre Province’s OCOP products at Bến Tre Coconut Food and Trade Fair in 2022. — VNA/VNS Photo Huỳnh Phúc Hậu

BẾN TRE — The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Bến Tre plans to develop more products under the national “One Commune, One Product” programme to promote local advantages and improve rural incomes.

OCOP products are commercial products and services such as food and beverages, handicrafts, herbal products, and rural tourism. They are classified from one to five stars.

The province now has 200 OCOP products, 110 of them with three stars and 90 with four. Of them, 16 have the potential to be upgraded to five-star status.

Đoàn Văn Đảnh, director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the goal is to get another 45 certified as three-star or above this year besides getting 30 upgraded.

To achieve the targets, the province would strengthen advocacy to improve the programme’s quality and efficiency, he added.

After checking various products that have the potential for getting recognition, authorities will instruct their producers to register under OCOP.

It will assist individuals and organisations with developing new products, community-based tourism products and tourism destinations to capitalise on advantages like landscapes, culture and craft villages.

It will encourage young people, women and others who are researching speciality products to develop them into OCOP items.

The department will develop organic agriculture, zone areas for growing materials for making OCOP products and deep processing models for such products to improve quality and value.

It will boost trade promotion, showcase OCOP products at fairs and other events, and find regular outlets for them.

It will foster the use of advanced techniques and assist producers with upgrading facilities for making and preserving OCOP products.

Nguyễn Văn Bé, director of the provincial Department of Industry and Trade, said his agency would help households and co-operatives making OCOP products participate in fairs and exhibitions.

The department and the province’s Tourism Promotion Information Centre would display OCOP products at popular tourism destinations in the province and around the delta, he said.

Bến Tre, the first province in the region to adopt the OCOP programme, has high-quality products such as green skin and pink flesh grapefruit and those made from coconut such as candy, jam, handicrafts, and cosmetics.

The country’s largest coconut producer boasts among others Hoàng Yến coconut candy and coconut cake and candy made by the Vĩnh Tiến Company Limited.

Đặng Thị Trúc Lan, director of Vĩnh Tiến, said the company makes 500 tonnes of coconut products a year.

Co-operatives have played an important part in developing OCOP products, with 10 of them making such products.

They include the Bến Tre Green Skin and Pink Flesh Grapefruit Co-operative in Châu Thành District’s Phú An Hoà Commune, whose fruit has received four stars.

It has 101ha under the grapefruit, which it grows to Vietnamese good agricultural practices (VietGAP) standards, and has an output of over 1,000 tonnes a year. — VNS