From the test results in these 2 Industrial Clusters, Dong Nai will replicate the model to promote agricultural product processing industry, increase efficiency and sustainability for agricultural production.
Agricultural product processing industry “lags behind”
According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in recent years, the province's agricultural production has had a good growth rate and is always higher than the average growth rate of the whole country.
In particular, agricultural production in the province has gradually shifted towards developing large and concentrated agricultural production areas. Currently, Dong Nai has formed concentrated production areas such as 44,000 hectares of rubber, 34,000 hectares of cashew nuts, 19,000 hectares of coffee beans, 9,000 hectares of pepper, 10,000 hectares of rambutan, 10,000 hectares of mango and nearly 3,000 hectares of durian. Dong Nai also ranks first across the country in terms of number of farms with over than 3,800 farms. In particular, the province has approved the implementation of 19 large field projects that connect production and consumption.
Despite the development, however, according to the assessment, the Agriculture sector still remains unsustainable and unstable. The main reason is that the processing industry for agricultural products is still weak and backward. This results in the fact that the majority of agricultural products must be exported in raw form, of low value and are highly dependent on market fluctuations.
Preliminary processing for production of cashew products at Thien Minh Co., Ltd. (Long Khanh Town).
Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade Nguyen Tri Phuong said that the province now has 300 enterprises operating in the field of agricultural and food products processing, of which 130 enterprises are operating in industrial parks and Industrial Cluster. However, the majority of these enterprises are enterprises with foreign direct investment (FDI), the number of domestic enterprises is very small. "For the agricultural product processing industry, the main contributions are foreign-invested economic entities," said Mr. Phuong.
In addition, the province now has more than 3,000 establishments and household businesses dealing in agricultural product processing. Most of these establishments are small-scale, outdated technology so they only stop at the preliminary level but cannot process them deeply.
Assessing the situation of the agricultural and food processing industry in the province, the Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade said that most enterprises and production establishments of this field operate chiefly deal in preliminary processing so they do not have high mark-ups. Currently, the main products are animal feed, monosodium glutamate, seasoning powder, coffee, canned food, sugar cane, beer, etc. Meanwhile, fruits and livestock breeding, which are a strength of the Province, have their processing almost ignored.
According to Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province Mr. Vo Van Chanh, Dong Nai is an industrial province but over the recent years, the Province mainly focused on developing the industries of machinery manufacture, textile production, leather shoes ... Regarding the industries that serve agriculture, they are stll very weak, while Dong Nai is a large agricultural production region of the country with a wide range of diverse fruits and industrial plants. According to the Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province, this is one of the reasons that farmers in the Province often fall into the scenario of "good yield bad rice, good price bad yield" and that agricultural production is more often than not, unstable and unsustainable. “Due to not developing processing industry, the fruit yield in the harvest becomes too great, leading to mass price drop. If there is a processing industry, then the fruits can be purchased and processed into many products to enhance their value, and that also helps expand the market, ”said Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province Mr. Vo Van Chanh.
Dedicated to 2 Industrial Clusters for agricultural product processing industry
Facing the "sluggish" performance of agricultural product processing industry, Dong Nai is currently focusing its resources to promote the development of this field. According to Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province Mr, Vo Van Chanh, the agricultural product processing industry will be one of the key points to focus on in the upcoming future for the entire Province: "Brand names only come with processing, and only with brand names can we increase the export values of our products, and only then could our agriculture attain sustainable development”.
To carry out this direction, Dong Nai has selected 2 Industrial clusters including Phu Tuc Industrial Cluster at Dinh Quan District and Long Giao Industrial Cluster at Cam My District to invite investors in the field of agricultural product processing.
Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade Mr. Nguyen Tri Phuong said that these two Industrial clusters are already included in the plan but there is no investor yet so it is very convenient. In addition, the procedures related to these two Industrial clusters are almost complete.
Evaluating the potential of Phu Tuc Industrial Cluster when prioritizing the agricultural processing industry, Vice Chairman of Dinh Quan District People's Committee Mr. Tran Nam Bien said that this is an Industrial Cluster with good traffic connection, and has already connected to the national power grid. One special feature is that, the location of the Industrial Cluster also connects 3 localities with large agricultural yield such as Dinh Quan, Thong Nhat and Xuan Loc.
Regarding Long Giao Industrial Cluster, according to Vice Chairman of Cam My District People's Committee Mr. Nguyen Van Thang, the construction of this Industrial Cluster has not yet been implemented but many investors in the field of agricultural product processing have come to register for investment.
In response to this fact, Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province, Mr. Vo Van Chanh, requested Dinh Quan and Cam My to quickly complete the necessary files, speeding up the process to ensure that these two Industrial Clusters must be put into operation by the end of the year. Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province stressed that in order to speed up the progress, the Province may consider to let investors implement their investment project alongside with the construction of infrastructure of these Industrial Clusters.
For other localities, the Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province requested that the competent management review the operation and investment progress of each Industrial Cluster in the region. If it is impossible to have an Industrial Cluster dedicated to the processing of agricultural products, then it still is possible to invite and attract more suitable industries that cause less environmental pollution. However, according to the Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province, for large raw agricultural material regions such as Tan Phu, Dinh Quan and Xuan Loc, it is necessary aim for a strong development in agricultural product processing.
Dong Nai is a "No. 1" region to develop agricultural product processing industry
According to Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province Mr. Vo Van Chanh, both foreign and domestic experts have considered Dong Nai as the "No. 1" province of Vietnam to develop agricultural industries especially the processing industry. This assessment is due to Dong Nai having the advantages of being located in the Southern Key Economic Zone, with great convenience in terms of transportation, of being the hub for trading and communication between not just domestic entities but also for foreign entities as well. In addition, Dong Nai also has stable weather conditions, stable climate and geological conditions. An important thing of note is that most of Dong Nai farmers have an industrialized mindset and ways of doing business so it is very convenient.
