National rice brand available, but still cannot be used

Vietnam Rice, the national rice brand, was made public in late 2018. However, no export company has been given the right to use the brand.

Under the Vietnam Rice plan, building, developing and managing a national rice brand will help improve the position and value of Vietnam rice in the world market, and accelerate sustainable development in production, processing and trading activities.

Because of the important significance of the plan, it has allocated a big budget of VND129.7 billion for implementation.

The money would be spent on five component projects: 1/ building and management of the national rice brand 2/ choosing key rice products of Mekong River Delta and developing them into national products 3/ protecting Vietnam rice brands and supporting enterprises to register for brand protection in the international market 4/ popularizing Vietnam Rice brand to producers, enterprises and consumers and 5/ accelerating the export and market development of products bearing the Vietnam Rice brand.

In December 2018, at the national Rice Festival organized in Long An province, the Farm Produce Processing and Market Development Department publicized the Vietnam Rice logo.

To date, Vietnam’s export companies still cannot use the logo and the brand, because there has been no guideline from state management agencies.

Nevertheless, to date, Vietnam’s export companies still cannot use the logo and the brand, because there has been no guideline from state management agencies.

Do Ha Nam, deputy chair of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), confirmed that state agencies still have not released the regulations on using the brand name

Nam predicted that exporters may have to wait two more years for the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) to release legal documents.

He urged state management agencies and rice exporters to speed up their work, warning that any delay will cause big waste of money.

Lam Anh Tuan, director of Thinh Phat Food, admitted that he is not interested in using Vietnam Rice brand and logo. “There must be regulations and guidance on how to use the brand. However, I have not learned about this because my clients don’t require this,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Pham Thai Binh, CEO of Trung An Hi-tech Agriculture JSC, affirmed that Trung An still has no consignment of rice exported with Vietnam Rice Brand.

While government officials emphasize the important role and significance of the national rice brand, businesses are indifferent.

Binh from Trung An said the demand for using the Vietnam Rice brand is modest. “Enterprises don’t have to have the Vietnam Rice logo on their products to export rice,” he said.