Cooperative program launched to assist Hanoi in ensuring a safe and reliable food supply

The event was held online as part of the 8th session of The 970 Agricultural Connection Forum, with the Hanoi People's Committee, Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper, the Trade Promotion Center for Agriculture, and the People's Committees of 40 provinces and cities serving as primary bridge points. There are approximately 600 attendees.

Mr. Brian Allemekinders, head of Cooperation and Development at the Canadian Embassy in Vietnam congratulated the leaders of the Hanoi People's Committee, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, provinces and cities, as well as business partners, on organizing such a significant event.

"We trust that the agreement signed today between Hanoi and other provinces will help ensure a stable and safe food supply for citizens in and around Hanoi, particularly in this new normal," Mr. Allemekinders said.

Canada has been a long-standing development and cooperation partner of the Vietnamese government, particularly in the MARD. Canada also assists Vietnam via a project called "Food Safety for Development," which aims to promote food safety and increase the domestic market competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural goods. international.

Apart from their development collaboration, Vietnam and Canada are significant commercial partners and participants of the CPTPP. He said that agro-food goods are critical to bilateral trade.

The Canadian side will collaborate to best assist the Government of Vietnam's efforts to improve food safety results and provide a sustainable food supply for all citizens across the nation.

Director of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries' Department of Quality Management According to Nguyen Nhu Tiep, food safety is critical for agriculture's value increase and sustainable growth.

Food safety has been a top priority since 2015. Under the direction of the MARD and the Hanoi People's Committee, the program must raise the bar in order to ensure food safety while also contributing to value enhancement. In order to meet the requirements of both export and domestic markets, as well as the requirements of the goods supply chain, safety must be prioritized. The goal is to strengthen commercial relations between Hanoi and adjacent provinces and cities.

The initiative will run from now until 2025 and will focus on three objectives: sustaining results, reproducing the supply chain of safe agricultural and aquatic goods, and increasing by at least 10% yearly. The next step is to elevate it to a value chain, one that includes not just safety but also quality, brand, packaging, and design. The final objective is to ensure that the product chain adheres to international standards.

"Agricultural sector leaders have reached an agreement on how to ensure that domestic consumers get items of the same quality as exporting goods," Tiep said.

In concluding the program, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam said that Forum 970 had reaffirmed its status as a conduit for agricultural commerce between provinces and cities around the nation via its eight sessions. This is also a source of information for ministries, branches, and local governments' agencies, managers, and production managers.

"Today's forum has 350 points of connection and over 1,000 users, and has already linked over 30 transactions." Additionally, immediately after the Forum, the MARD and HCMC-Hanoi will sign agreements and coordinate the deployment of food safety control models tailored to the agricultural value chain, "added Deputy Minister.

As a result, the leaders of MARD urged provinces to prioritize agricultural product quality and to gather information on supply sources, while also requiring these focus areas to adhere to safety and sanitary norms and laws. food production to meet the demands of the Hanoi market.

"In order to protect customers' interests, in addition to applauding safe and quality supply networks, it is vital to remove chains that do not fulfill criteria. We establish the circumstances for supply and demand to interact, but we also have to monitor the supply chains' quality, food safety, and cleanliness," Deputy Minister Tran Thanh Nam added.