Hanoi hosts Dutch-funded training course on potatoes

A training course started on Nov. 30 in Hanoi to instruct 21 agricultural technicians from ten Asian countries on how to develop a potato industry, from planting to processing, in rural Asia.

With the title “Developing a sustainable potato industry to support rural areas in Asia,” the event drew agricultural specialists from Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Pakistan who had all previously undergone training on how to grow potatoes in the Netherlands.

During the two-week training course, three leading lecturers from the Netherlands and several Vietnamese trainers will update the participants with all the latest technologies and practical experiences that are best suited to the situation in their own countries.

At a total cost of 70,000 EUR (or 105,315 USD), the course has been fully funded by Wageningen International, a joint agency for international collaboration under Wageningen University and the Dutch Research Centre.

It was jointly organised by the Vietnamese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VAAS) and the Vietnam-Netherlands Alumni Club.

Long An offers incentives for border zone investors

The Mekong delta province of Long An will offer a clutch of incentives related to taxes, fees, land rental, and others to companies investing in its two border gate economic zones (BGEZ) of Binh Hiep and My Quy Tay. It will fully waive rents for entrepreneurs investing in certain sectors.

All new projects will have to pay an income tax of just 10 percent for the first 15 years and a 50 percent waive for the next nine.

All foreign organisation and individuals and overseas Vietnamese are encouraged to invest even in the form of build-operate-transfer and build-transfer.

Dak Lak to export 6,000 tonnes of honey

The Central Highland province of Dak Lak expects to export more than 6,000 tonnes of honey this year, representing more than 54.5 percent of the country’s total export volume.

Since the beginning of this year, the province has harvested 5,500 tonnes of honey. Of this amount, about 5,000 tonnes have been exported.

“The total export volume this year is estimated to double last year’s total,” said Pham Ngoc Anh, head of marketing section under the Dak Lak Honey Bee Joint Stock Company.

The Province’s honey has recently been exported to markets including the US, Canada, Japan and South Korea. The US remains the biggest market, importing about 90 percent on Dak Lak’s total honey export.

“Importers like Vietnamese honey because of its quality. It is not blended with any other materials,” Anh said.

Last year, honey earned the province an export turnover of seven million USD, accounting for 30 percent of the country’s total honey exports.

This was the fourth continuous time that Dak Lak has been listed the country’s leading honey exporter.

The number of bee hives in the province has increased to 250,000 by now.

The quality of honey has been strongly improved as new bee species have been introduced. However, to date, Vietnam has only exported honey, while sweets or cakes have yet to be produced. “Vietnamese honey is dark, so it is not suitable for other products,” Anh said.

PM present at kick-off ceremony of pipeline construction, visits Hau Giang

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on November 28 was present at the kick off ceremony for construction of a pipeline that brings gas from lot B off the country’s southwestern coast to O Mon district, the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho.

The US$1 billion lot B-O Mon gas pipeline, nearly 400 kilometres in length including 246 kilometres under sea and 152 kilometres on land, will run through Can Tho city and provinces of Hau Giang, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu and Ca Mau, according to the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) – the investor of the project.

Once completed, the pipeline is capable of transporting 18.3 million cubic metres of gas a day (or 6.4 billion cubic metres a year). to power plants in the electric power centres of O Mon and Tra Noc with a combined capacity of 3,000 MW in Can Tho province and a 750 MW thermoelectric power plant in Ca Mau province.

This is a main work of the oil and gas sector, built right on the occasion of the 48th anniversary of the traditional day of the Vietnam oil and gas industry (November 27, 1961 – November 27, 2009).

In addition, the lot B-O Mon gas pipeline also may link to the gas pipeline systems in Southeast Asia and the gas pipeline system in the eastern part of the southern region in order to balance Vietnam’s demand for gas energy in the future.

Addressing the ground-breaking ceremony, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung highlighted the pipeline’s profound significance to the Mekong River Delta in particular and the country in general as it will work to ensure energy security for the nation and particularly pave the way for the national gas pipeline system to link with that in Southeast Asia.

He emphasised that the construction of the lot B-O Mon gas pipeline marks an important milestone in the oil and gas industry’s development.

The same day, PM Dung paid a working visit to the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang to examine the locality’s socio-economic performance in 2009 and its plan for 2010.

He told the provincial leaders that possessing advantages in rice farming and production, Hau Giang should work to become a leading locality in rice production and consumption.

The PM assigned the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to continue working with Hau Giang to check the planning regarding the locality’s rice growing acreage in order to develop rice processing facilities in order to secure stable and sustainable rice consumption for local farmers.

The Government leader also pointed out that Hau Giang remains weak in transport infrastructure and education and training so it is necessary for the province to rally all available resources to invest in the two areas to enable all of its communes to be accessible by road and each commune to have a primary school and a junior secondary school built in the future.

After nearly five years of re-establishment, Hau Giang posted an estimated GDP growth rate of 12.6% in 2009 with per capita income of US$762.

However, the Mekong Delta province is still overcoming poverty as more than 12% of its households are living under the poverty line.

Bitter harvest for sugarcane farmers after typhoon destruction

Typhoons Ketsana and Mirinae destroyed 50 percent of the standing sugarcane crop in the central provinces of Quang Ngai, Binh Binh, Phu Yen and Kon Tum, causing a severe shortage of cane for making sugar.

Nguyen Phuong, a Binh Dinh farmer, said: “Our family had grown sugarcane on 8,000 square meters for nine months. Typhoon Ketsana struck [in October] and destroyed much of the crop. Then Typhoon Mirinae hit the province and destroyed the rest.”

Phan Lam Tuong, deputy general director of the Binh Dinh Sugar Company, said his company’s farms in Binh Dinh and Giai Lai provinces were affected by the storms, with 40 percent of the crop being destroyed, reducing sugar production by 83,700 tons.

Companies in Phu Yen Province had planned to crush 160,000 tons of cane to make 16,000 tons of sugar this year.

Le Tan Dam of the province-based Tuy Hoa Sugar Company said, however: “Thirty percent or 40,000 tons of cane were destroyed by floods. So the sugar output will fall to 12,000 tons. Sugar companies will face a severe shortage of cane for two to three months.”

The Quang Ngai Sugar Company reported that 4,209 hectares of sugarcane run by its Quang Phu and Pho Phong sugar mills in the province were destroyed.

Sugar mills in the Central Highlands have always lacked sugarcane to make sugar, the damage of hundreds of thousands of cane by the storms will make the shortage more serious, and even mills’ production plans will go “bankrupt”.

To overcome the shortage, sugar mills in Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, and Phu Yen hope to increase cane productivity and expand the area under sugarcane.

Mr. Dam said: “My company will invest VND15 million per hectare to grow sugarcane in 2010-11 and use a ton of fertilizer on every hectare. The company will buy cane at VND490,000 a ton at farms and VND550,000-650,000 if farmers bring it to the mill.”

Mr. Tuong said: “New high-yield cane varieties like R579, R570, K88-65, and K88-92 will be planted on an experiment basis in Binh Dinh by BISUCO. They yield 120-150 tons a hectare.”

“If it is successful, we will expand the area under cultivation to encourage farmers to grow sugarcane again,” he added.

The Quang Ngai Sugar Company had spent VND36 billion on the 2008-09 crop to develop sugarcane farms and billons of dong to build transportation and irrigation systems but the area under sugarcane still declined.

Though sugar companies have plans to expand the area under cane, they and farmers need to raise funds for a new crop.

Vo Thanh Dang, chairman of the Vietnam Sugarcane and Sugar Association, said: “The association has asked the Government and local administrations to adopt policies to assist farmers, reschedule bank debts, and waive taxes on sugar and sugarcane enterprises.”

Vietnam grants quotas for 10 tons gold imports: TV

Vietnam's central bank has granted quotas for the import of 10 tons of gold since lifting an import ban earlier this month and 6.8 tons had already come in, state broadcaster VTV said on Wednesday.

"The imports will have an impact on the local gold market," VTV quoted State Bank of Vietnam Governor Nguyen Van Giau as saying.

He said the quotas had been granted to eight banks and three gold traders, it reported, without specifying names.

VietNamNet/VNA, TN, SGGP, ND