Although there are many agricultural products exported worth “billions of dollars”, contributing greatly to the country’s economy, Vietnamese agricultural products are still “inferior” in the international market due to the lack of a strong brand. Therefore, in order not to be disadvantaged in the international market, it is necessary to strengthen the legal corridor and build brands for domestic agricultural products.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is proposing to develop a Decree on building and developing brands and trademarks of Vietnamese agricultural products to stipulate specific and specific mechanisms and policies for developing brands and trademarks of Vietnamese agricultural products.

Propose 4 specific and distinctive policies

In 2024, Vietnam's agricultural sector will export a record 62.5 billion USD, an increase of 9.5 billion USD compared to the previous year. The agricultural trade surplus will also reach 18.6 billion USD, many times higher than the 6.5 - 12.2 billion USD of the 2015 - 2023 period.

It is worth mentioning that agricultural products account for a large proportion of Vietnam's exports with an annual turnover of about 50 billion USD, of which vegetables and fruits play a key export role. Vietnamese vegetables and fruits are present in most major import markets, including markets with strict requirements on quality standards such as the US, EU, Japan and Korea... However, among them, nearly 80% of Vietnam's agricultural products on the market do not have a brand, logo or label.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the development of the Decree on building and developing brands and trademarks of Vietnamese agricultural products aims to strictly manage the quality of production, processing and certification of products with national agricultural product brands to help consumers feel secure when using them, ensuring safe, quality products, certified and committed to traceability.

Ensuring a transparent and healthy market; strengthening communication and image promotion, enhancing position in the international market. Thereby, contributing to increasing the added value of agricultural products, increasing income for farmers and businesses.

In addition, regulating the process to be applied in the management and operation of agricultural product brands that have been registered for protection; is the legal basis for providing a set of criteria for businesses and products that are allowed to use (carry) agricultural product brands. Strengthening consultancy, training, and international cooperation on developing Vietnamese agricultural product brands and trademarks, especially registering for protection in international markets; regulating specific and specific mechanisms and policies for building and developing Vietnamese agricultural product brands and trademarks.

Regarding the orientation of developing a Decree on building and developing Vietnamese agricultural product brands and trademarks, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development proposed 4 policies including: Policy to support standardization of production, processing, and preservation processes; Policy to support registration for protection of agricultural product brands and trademarks domestically and internationally; Policy to support capacity building for owners and organizations managing the use of agricultural product brands and trademarks; Policy to support communication, promotion, and market development programs.

Consider a series of policies to support businesses, cooperatives and associations

Regarding the above issue, many opinions believe that this is a necessary task, because building a brand for Vietnamese agricultural products has become an extremely urgent issue, without a legal corridor, it is difficult to promote this activity soon.

Commenting on the draft Decree, the Vietnam Federation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said that to develop agricultural product brands, the following factors are required: Products that meet the requirements in terms of quantity and quality; the ability to penetrate domestic and foreign distribution channels; developing a suitable brand identity and brand story.

In particular, VCCI supports the support policies that the Draft is proposing to support businesses with initial funding in implementing trademark protection. "Brand protection is only necessary and effective when the brand has brought economic value and the protection is aimed at protecting those economic values", VCCI emphasized.

At the same time, VCCI believes that similar reasons leading to the underdevelopment of Vietnamese agricultural product brands are also identified, including: there is no concentrated production area to have enough large and stable quality raw materials; production, processing, packaging, transportation, and preservation processes have not been standardized; and promotion and communication have not been developed.

Therefore, within the scope of this Draft, VCCI recommends that the drafting agency consider some specific support policies.

These are policies to support costs for enterprises, cooperatives, and associations to standardize production and processing processes. Policies to support enterprises and cooperatives to build and develop brand identities. Policies to support enterprises and cooperatives to participate in courses to improve brand building capacity, business capacity improvement courses, advertising on e-commerce...

In addition, according to VCCI, investing in building an agricultural product brand (national or local) also requires synchronous implementation of measures to achieve optimal efficiency with the ultimate goal of making that agricultural product brand popular, recognizable and bringing economic value. Only then will the State's support policies and funding be effective and not wasteful.

On the contrary, the State's support resources may be used ineffectively. Therefore, to ensure the policy objectives, VCCI recommends that the drafting agency consider designing the policy in the direction of selecting a number of potential Vietnamese agricultural brands (according to criteria) and will support costs and activities to develop the brand. The measurement of effectiveness can be based on specific criteria such as output/quality, number of distribution channels and revenue.

Source: VnBusiness