Over 30% of agricultural cooperatives operate effectively

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development held a conference to review its operation in 2016 and tasks this year of cooperative economic sector and rural development in Ba Ria - Vung Tau province on February 21.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as of the end of last year, Vietnam had 19 unions of agricultural cooperatives, 10,756  agricultural cooperatives, most of which are operated in the Red River Delta (31%), North Central (21.1%), and Northeast (16.9%). About 1,100 agricultural cooperatives were established in the previous year.

As many as 8,375 cooperatives have so far been converted under the Law on Cooperatives in 2012, accounting for 77.9%. In 2016, the operations of cooperatives across the country recorded significant changes with the rate of 30% of cooperatives implementing efficiently. The average revenue of each cooperative was about 1.1 billion VND with the profit of 200 million VND per cooperative, and income of each cooperative member was 1.5 million VND per month.

During the reviewed time, some cooperative unions and agricultural cooperatives operated effectively with their sales of over 10 billion VND/year, including Anh Dao agricultural Services Cooperatives (Lam Dong province), Phuoc An agricultural services and production Cooperative (HCM City), and Evergrowth Agricultural Cooperative (Soc Trang province).

In 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development aims to establish about 1,300 new cooperatives to fulfill the target of 15,000 effective cooperatives set by the Resolution of the National Assembly.

Besides, the ministry is trying to complete the transformation of cooperatives, thus raising the number of efficient cooperatives nationwide to 45%.

In the field of agricultural cooperatives development, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development aims to set up about 15 cooperatives annualy in the northeastern and northwest localities.

Translated by Thu Minh

Source: Thien Tu-Kinhtedothi