Vietnam and Australia sign first MOU under agriculture visa

The signing ceremony of a MoU was held on a virtual platform. MoLISA Minister Dao Ngoc Dung and Australian foreign minister Marise Payne represented the two countries’ governments in signing the MoU.

The MoU on supporting Vietnamese citizens to participate in the Agricultural Worker Program is the first document that Australia has signed with countries that send workers to work in this country under the Agricultural Visa Program.

At the signing ceremony on March 28, Minister Dung emphasized the deal as an important milestone in the cooperation relations between the two countries.

“In the context of deepening international cooperation and integration, the MoU will be an effective job creation channel, bringing economic benefits, contributing to ensuring sustainable social security, unleashing potentials, and contributing to the promotion of the bilateral cooperation relationship between Việt Nam and Australia to be even more successful and prosperous,” the labor minister said.

He also expects the MoU will create a legal framework that facilitates the entry of Vietnamese citizens into Australia to work in the agricultural sector.

 Australia is currently receiving foreign workers with good wages, a clear legal system that secures their rights but the country also imposes strict requirements for the skills and languages.

The entry of Vietnamese laborers into the countries in different forms and for various jobs, including those in the agricultural sector, is necessary to meet their demands.

“Việt Nam’s participation in this programme strengthens and extends the already rich people-to-people links our two countries share. For decades, Vietnamese workers, students, business people, and tourists have made extensive contributions to Australia. The Australian Government looks forward to this continuing under the programme,” Australian foreign minister Marise Payne said.

Việt Nam’s early participation in the Australian Agriculture Visa Programme demonstrates the Morrison Government’s commitment to deepening cooperation under the Australia-Việt Nam Strategic Partnership, she noted.

This is a key initiative of the Australia-Việt Nam Enhanced Economic Engagement Strategy launched by our countries’ Prime Ministers on 1 November 2021, Marise Payne said.

According to her, the Australian Agriculture Visa Programme would supply labor for Australia to develop the agricultural sector and help Vietnamese laborers to have jobs with good income and working conditions, especially the opportunities to enhance their knowledge and skills about advanced science and technology, he added.

She also said that the welfare of Vietnamese laborers was Australia's biggest priority under this Memorandum of Understanding.

Earlier, the Australian Government announced the visa program for workers in the agricultural sector and selected Vietnam as one of the first countries to join the program (besides Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines). It is intended to provide a sustainable, long-term contribution to Australia’s labor supply that supports Australia’s agricultural and primary industry sectors.

In addition, the program will bring economic benefits and create opportunities for foreign workers to accumulate knowledge, experience and skills, increase their income as well as send their income back home during their working period in Australia.

It supplements the Pacific Australia Labor Mobility (PALM) scheme, which remains the mainstay for meeting agricultural workforce shortages in our primary industries sector and the key solution for the current harvest, the Australian diplomat remarked.

Under the Australian Agriculture Visa programme, employees will be recruited to work across a range of agriculture sectors, including horticulture, dairy, wool, grains, fisheries and forestry, including support services and primary processing.

It is expected that Australia will receive about 1,000 Vietnamese agricultural laborers a year, with basic salary (excluding living expenses) from 3,200-4,000 AUD a month, quite a competitive level compared to other labor markets popular among Vietnamese workers.

Australia had decided to seal its border from March 2020, in an effort to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a shortage of workers, especially in the agricultural sector.

Long before the country closed its borders to deal with COVID-19, Australian farmers had called for a new visa to recruit farm workers, skilled and unskilled.

There were estimates the horticulture sector required an extra 26,000 workers during the height of the pandemic, but industry sources on Monday said the figure was currently closer to 10,000.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Australia Labor Mobility scheme, which recruits un-skilled and semi-skilled workers from the Pacific and Timor-Leste, has approved an additional 55,000 workers to take up Australian-based jobs in agriculture, meat processing, aged care, hospitality and tourism.