Agriculture sector acts to lure more investments

Illustrative photo (Source: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) will continue reforming administrative procedures and improving the business environment to lure more investments into the sector this year, particularly hi-tech and organic agriculture.

According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan, the MARD will review 508 administrative procedures and propose simplifying or cutting out 287 out of these administrative procedures, or 56.5 percent.

It will also review a total 345 business and investment conditions and propose that 118 of which be amended and cut out, equivalent to 34.2 percent.

Eighteen out of 40 specialised inspection procedures will be reviewed, while quarantine and clearance time will be shortened from 24 hours to no more than four hours for goods transported by land or air and no more than 10 hours for those transported by sea.

The ministry will continue the second phase of the National Single Window and ASEAN Single Window mechanisms at its five units, aimed at streamlining administrative procedures.

In 2017, the MARD actively implemented Resolution 35/NQ-CP on supporting and developing enterprises by 2020, and Resolution 19-2017/NQ-CP on the further implementation of key tasks and measures to improve the business environment and enhance the national competitiveness in 2017, with a vision to 2020, according to Tuan.

It focused on connecting enterprises on the basis of sectors, value chains, and scales, and between local and international firms, while providing assistance for social businesses and startups.

Level 4 online public services were offered at the ministry’s Department of Plant Protection and Department of Livestock Production, one-stop-shop online administrative procedure services were launched to support enterprises, and interactive services were enabled on the online portal of the ministry and its units’ websites to timely receive and address petitions.

The sector saw an increasing number of newly established firms with 1,955 companies in 2017, raising the total number of businesses investing in agriculture to 5,700.

Many major groups poured billions of USD into hi-tech and organic agriculture as one of their key orientations and gained significant achievements in the sector.