The seminar “Promoting technology applications to enhance agricultural value chains in Southern Vietnam” was succefully organized by the State Agency for Technology Innovation in the series of Ba Ria – Vung Tau Techdemo 2015 events on November 5^th

The seminar saw the presence of Deputy Minister of Science & Technology Tran Van Tung, Deputy Chairman of Provincial People's Council Le Thanh Dung, Former Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Bui Ba Bong, leaders of departements at Ministry of Science and Technology, representative of Board of VIIP project and more than 300 participants from enterprises, research institutes, universities, and provincial departments of Science and Technology.

In the opening remark, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Van Tung acknowledged the importance of agriculture in national economics, especially in guaranteeing food security, reducing poverty and stabilizing political and societal environment. In recent years, Vietnam has become one of the leading countries in agricultural, seafood and forestry export. In the context of deeper global integration of Vietnam as the country is now part of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCED), Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) and many Free Trade Agreements, enhancing agricultural value chains in Vietnam is a critical factor to ensure the success of the sector in the upcoming years. With those opportunities and challenges ahead, the Ministry of Science & Technology aims to further promote technological applications into agricultural production and support innovation and technology transfer to enhance value chains in this traditional sector.

There were five presentations delivered during the seminar, namely “Demand for innovation and technology application in agricultural products processing industries”, “Solutions for marketing Vietnam agricultural products”, “Technological solutions for fruits production”, “Supply Chain management for Vietnam agricultural products”, “The role of technological applications and innovations in global integration of Vietnam agricultural sector” and the introduction of Vietnam Inclusive Innovation project (VIIP), a state project financed by World Bank. Beside, the discussion about strengths and weaknesses of the Vietnam agricultural sector when TPP is put into place was also addressed at the seminar.

In the concluding remark, the Deputy Minister highly appreciated the presence of speakers and seminar participants and believed that the seminar has created a platform for experts to meet, exchange ideas and propose solutions to develop agricultural value chains in Vietnam by promoting technology applications and innovations.