Vinh Long (VNA)🍸 - The fourth Vietnam Rice Festival is taking place in theMekong Delta province of Vinh Long with a wide range of events designed topromote agro-economy and ricetrade in domestic and foreign markets.

Addressing the opening of the eventon December 13, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Farmers’ Union Luong Quoc Doan hailed the festival as an importantopportunity to boost investment and business development in the rice industry. “The festival aims to support trade promotionand create an opportunity for businesses, cooperatives and individuals inproduction and business to exchange information on brand promotion and productconsumption; to connect supply and demand of consumption markets; and topromote links, joint ventures, and apply new science and technology inproduction, processing and trade of services, thus improving farmers' incomes,” Doan said. At the festival’s opening ceremony, theMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Vietnam Farmer’s Unionhonoured 105 outstanding individuals and collectives in implementing aresolution of the National Assembly and the Prime Minister’s Decision on developing15,000 effective cooperatives and associations of agricultural cooperatives. Among activities at the event, which will last until December 19, there will be a trade fair with 800-1,000 pavilions, a ricecooking contest, and an art photography competition on the theme of rice fieldsand rice cultivation. Workshops on important issues related toagricultural development will also be held as part of the event, focusing onlegal framework and policies for agricultural cooperatives, agriculturalvocational training, conditions for developing agro-economy and rural areas,support for rice growers, and investment in processing and trading farmproduce. Vinh Long, located in the centre of theMekong Delta, is one of the main rice growing provinces with nearly 1 milliontonnes of paddy harvested each year. It also ranks second in the delta in fruitand vegetable output. Vietnam exported 5.56 million tonnes of rice andbrought home 2.43 billion USD in the first 10 months of 2019, up 6.1 percent involume but down 9.1 percent in value over the same period last year./.