Ba Ria-Vung Tau targets hi-tech agriculture

Ho Chi Minh City – The southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau intends to develop hi-tech agriculture in order to guarantee food safety for residents and tourists, said a provincial leader.

Speaking at a conference on promotion of investment in hi-tech agriculture organized on September 12 by the province, the province’s Party Secretary Nguyen Hong Linh said the local government wanted enterprises to engage hi-tech agriculture to ensure sufficient quality food for residents and tourists.

The province has one million residents, and annually attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists. Therefore, the annual demand for foodstuffs is 100,000-120,000 tons, according to the provincial government.

Local authorities have therefore called on companies to invest in hi-tech agriculture so as to offer safe and quality products to its residents and visitors in the short term, and customers overseas later.

The province is striving to become one of the nation’s hi-tech agriculture centers, so it has drawn up a plan to develop hi-tech agriculture until 2020 with a vision toward 2025.

Linh told the Daily that the province has applied advanced technology and has developed some pilot models producing plant and vegetable seeds of high productivity and quality. These steps are in preparation for implementing the plan on hi-tech agriculture.

He added agriculture is one of the province’s major sectors which help bolster the provincial economy. The province embraces hi-tech agriculture technology in order to gradually improve incomes for farmers.

The province will create investment incentives to assist enterprises to invest in hi-tech agriculture, Linh said. “If enterprises have difficulty developing hi-tech agriculture projects, they can directly contact the province’s Party secretary and chairman in order to receive support.”