Vietnam, Denmark seek ways to strengthen cooperation in agri-Food sector
17/8/2022| 19:50A Danish agriculture and food delegation visited Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City on August 16-19 to exchange opportunities for cooperation and making business with their Vietnamese potential partners.
Several Danish and Vietnamese companies have spent time together to seek ideas and initiatives on new cooperative opportunities in agri-food in a workshop in Hanoi.
At the event. Source: Embassy of Denmark in Hanoi
A delegation consisting of 13 Danish companies has come to Vietnam to exchange opportunities for cooperation and making business with potential Vietnamese partners.
The Danish agri-food delegation is part of a joint effort between the Embassy of Denmark in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Danish Agriculture& Food Council to revitalize the long-term cooperation between the two countries in the agri-food sector after almost two years interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The delegation comprises 13 companies that are leading in Solutions for Livestock& Food Production, Food Processing Technologies, Ingredients and Climate Control Solutions. Those are important areas for improving agri-food production towards high efficiency, green, and sustainability.
The main purpose of the delegation is to share experiences and introduce world-leading and well-proven Danish solutions in agri-food production and to look for opportunities to cooperate with Vietnamese agri-food companies.
Further, the Embassy of Denmark in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration and the Danish Agriculture and Food Council jointly hosted a seminar themed ‘Danish experiences and solutions in sustainable agri-food production” in Hanoi on August 17.
The event was participated by Carsten Baltzer Rode, Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of Denmark and MARD Vice Minister Phung Duc Tien, along with local sector decision-makers and managers, experts, researchers and various Danish companies and Vietnamese companies.
The seminars provided a forum to connect and facilitate exchange of experiences, knowledge and technologies between local decision-makers, sector managers as well as Danish and Vietnamese entrepreneurs. Following the seminars was the business-to-business (B2B) meeting program between Vietnamese companies and the Danish business delegation.
A similar event will be held in Ho Chi Minh City on August 19.
According to Troels Jakobsen, Trade Counsellor of the Embassy of Denmark, the Danish agrifood industry for many years has continuously invested in new production equipment and solutions that boost production yield and improve product quality but at the same time consume less water and energy. Nowadays, Denmark produces three times more food than the Danish population can consume, with some of the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in Europe.
Danish companies and experts, therefore, are very willing to share innovative ideas and technologies with their Vietnamese counterparts as well as look for opportunities to cooperate and make good and sustainable business together, he added.
"The Vietnam - Denmark cooperation program in agriculture and food has an important impact on the development of Vietnam's agricultural sector. Vietnamese sector agencies and companies can apply the experiences and knowledge they learned from their Danish partners in their work and businesses. This is important in the context when Vietnam's agricultural sector has been striving to develop value chain and sustainable production towards a smart and high-tech industry," said MARD Vice Minister Tien at the workshop in Hanoi.
The Danish Agri-Food delegation is part of long-term cooperation between Denmark and Vietnam to support Vietnam’s efforts to transform the agriculture and food sector towards green and sustainability.
Previously, theVietnamese Ambassador to Denmark Luong Thanh Nghi met Deputy Director General of the Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) Thomas Bustrup in Copenhagen to discuss cooperation opportunities between enterprises of the two countries.
At the event, Thomas Bustrup affirmed that in the context that the two countries share many common interests and hold increasingly substantive and comprehensive relations, and many Danish businesses intend to expand their operations abroad, Vietnam has emerged as a potential destination. He expressed his thanks for and appreciated the cooperation and support of the Vietnamese Embassy in DI’s activities, and asked the Embassy to assist with the organization of Vietnam visits by Danish businesses in the coming time.
Ambassador Nghi affirmed that the Vietnamese Embassy is ready to act as a bridge connecting DI, and Danish businesses with the government and businesses of Vietnam for the benefit, prosperity, and sustainable development of the two countries.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1971, Vietnam and Denmark have enjoyed strong and close cooperation. Today, Vietnam is an important partner country for the Danish government with cooperation in areas such as green growth, energy, water, health, education, food safety, culture, and commerce.
Denmark was among the first in Europe to establish diplomatic ties with Vietnam and also the first North European country to lift the bilateral ties with Vietnam to a comprehensive partnership. It has remained among Vietnam’s largest ODA providers for years, whose projects mainly focused on enhancing climate resilience.
