Kien Giang Province promotes efficiency of cooperatives

In recent years, the local authorities in the Mekong Delta provinces in general and Kien Giang Province in particular have focused on improving the quality and performance of cooperatives.

Many localities have promoted the transformation and consolidation of inefficient cooperatives, merger and establishment of new cooperatives, which have attracted the participation of a large number of businesses.

According to Le Huu Toan, Deputy Director of Kien Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the province has the strength of agricultural production in the Mekong Delta, providing more than 4.5 million tons of food and more than 800,000 tons of aquatic products annually.

Particularly, Kien Giang has 433 cooperatives, 38% of which are efficient ones and 10% of which have poor productivity and might be dissolved.

The Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has advised the Provincial People's Committee to issue many resolutions and policies to support the development of cooperatives.

In particular, the policies focus on 4 core contents: Human resource training for cooperatives (training the board of directors, board of directors, supervisors, specialized departments...). It is expected that in the period of 2021-2025, 60 cooperatives will be directly selected for human resource training and the province will develop each policy for each object of staff participating in the training.

The establishment, merger and separation of cooperatives will be supported. It is expected that Kien Giang will have 300 newly established cooperatives and 30 cooperatives participating in mergers, consolidation and separation. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development supports facilities, office equipment, essential equipment... for the better operation of the cooperatives.

Cooperatives will receive credit support to have resources to expand their scale and quality of operations. The Provincial People's Committee has a very specific policy in providing credit support for cooperatives to buy production machinery and equipment, expand services, etc. Based on the specific conditions of each cooperative, the most suitable support service will be calculated (no more than 2 billion VND/cooperative/project, of which the cooperative will reciprocate 20%).

Besides, it is proposed that the State support with budget capital and 100% interest rate in the first 3 years and then 50% interest rate in the following years, provided that a project is not implemented for more than 5 years;

Favourable conditions will be created to promote agricultural cooperatives to develop through joint ventures, associations, and promote production along the value chain. In particular, focus on handling the situation of small-scale garment production, raising awareness in the management of the quality of agricultural products and the value of agricultural products for the people.

Cooperatives will be offered with conditions to access 75 projects in value chain linkage development, particularly those that focus on developing key products of the province. Thereby, the quality and scale of the cooperatives associated with the development of OCOP products are expected to improve.

According to Le Huu Toan, Kien Giang Province has a plan to train human resources and managers of cooperatives annually, based on the orientations and development strategies of cooperatives in the province. In particular, the province has focused on training skills in business planning, production management, human resource management and operation of cooperatives.

On average, over 99 training classes open in the province each year and more than 4,600 cooperative members are estimated to have access to the program.

Particularly in the period of 2021-2025, the province has a plan to invest VND9.6 billion (US$422,000) in human resource training, aiming at the target of managers of cooperatives having college degrees or higher educational certifications.

In addition, Kien Giang Province will also strengthen the connection of agricultural product consumptions, the highlight of which is implementing decrees and policies to encourage cooperation and association in the consumption of agricultural products.

Besides loan support, cooperative members are also introduced to access credit sources. More than 1,200 production households will be supported with a VND733 billion ($32 million) loan to buy machinery and equipment.

Kien Giang Province has also issued many policies to support cooperatives in developing infrastructure, integrating them into programs and projects that the province is implementing such as solidifying canals or irrigation works.

The province plans to integrate more ongoing projects, especially those of the MARD that are being implemented in locality such as VnSAT project, project 445 to support model cooperatives or aquaculture development project in 2021-2025...