Resolving difficulties in developing collective economy and cooperative economy

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Developing diverse services, especially the linkage between cooperatives and enterprises; cooperatives with cooperatives, cooperatives with people is being promoted by cooperatives in the province as an essential requirement for development. Tam Da Agricultural and Forestry Cooperative (Son Duong) is strongly investing in developing the electronic components processing sector, creating jobs for 100 idle workers in the locality. Mr. Tran Thanh Hai, Director of the Cooperative, said: The Cooperative is providing services on 60 hectares of sugarcane in association with Son Duong Sugarcane Joint Stock Company and processing electronic components. The development of service sectors is determined by the Cooperative's Board of Directors as a matter of survival for the Cooperative. If the Cooperative does not approach new jobs, it will not be able to develop, so in 2022, members of the Cooperative contributed over 2 billion VND to build a factory, as revolving capital. During the busy period, it creates jobs for 400 local workers. Currently, the Cooperative is building more factories and machinery to link with a business assembling plastic toys for export.

Production and assembly of electronic components at Tam Da Agricultural and Forestry Cooperative.

However, Mr. Hai shared: The most difficult thing for Tam Da Agricultural and Forestry Cooperative at present is the mortgaged assets to access investment capital sources for production rotation; support vocational training for workers. Therefore, he wants all levels and sectors to pay more attention to cooperatives to create conditions for cooperatives to develop and keep up with market trends.

Such as Tam Da Agricultural and Forestry Cooperative, Tien Thanh High-Tech Cooperative, Minh Khuong Cooperative; Minh Quang Cooperative, Trung Long Organic Tea Cooperative have sought to link up with export tea production enterprises. Mr. Nguyen Manh Thang, Director of the Cooperative, said: To support each other in bringing our hometown tea products to the world, in April 2022, he established Son Duong Tea Joint Stock Company, choosing to produce green tea for export to the South Asian and Central European markets, not only solving the output for fresh tea buds from ATK Son Duong tea area in the province but also contributing to diversifying the province's tea export products.

According to Mr. Thang, for many years, small-scale production, using traditional methods, has not consumed all fresh tea buds for local people, the profit has not been significant and developing small-scale production makes it difficult to apply science and technology. Therefore, we have to find a way to make a living with the tea industry, in difficult times, we have to take risks. After many years of studying and researching the export market for green tea, in 2022, he decided to join forces with some friends to invest over 8 billion VND to build a green tea export production line with a maximum capacity of 50 tons of dry tea/year. In 2023, over 30 tons of green tea were exported, with revenue reaching over 30 billion VND. In 2024, the cooperative - associated enterprise model strives to produce and export over 40 tons of dry green tea, with revenue of about 40 billion VND, creating regular jobs for 20 workers and nearly 1,000 tea-growing households in the province.

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Actively linking, improving product quality, aiming to develop in the direction of diversifying services. However, there are very few cooperatives with enough potential to make a breakthrough because the cooperatives are small in scale, lack capital, lack of high-quality labor...

Leather shoe production is jointly produced by Quang Minh Tea Cooperative and J-STAR VINA Tuyen Quang Company Limited.

In addition to the achieved results, the activities of the collective economic sector and cooperatives still face many difficulties and limitations. These include the impact of market fluctuations; small capital scale; limited staff qualifications, slow digital transformation; cooperatives have not attracted many members to participate and lack of linkage in product consumption. Some policies are not suitable for the nature, scale and characteristics of the collective economic model, cooperatives... so although there are more than 600 cooperatives, they are mainly small-scale, do not have large linkages, and no cooperatives have export products.

Mr. Cao Hung Dung, Chairman of the Provincial Cooperative Union, said that some Party committees and localities still do not fully understand the importance of collective economy and cooperatives for economic and social development. An effectively operating cooperative has great social security significance, both creating income and jobs for people and creating local commodity production, creating a chain of linkages in agricultural and forestry production... Therefore, developing collective economy and cooperatives in the right direction will be a lever for development. To develop a stronger cooperative economy, it is necessary to have more attention from sectors and local authorities in creating conditions and helping cooperatives in terms of capital, application of science and technology, land...

Supporting cooperatives to develop, since 2017 the province has supported 32 cooperatives with 100 million VND/cooperative to develop products, with a total support budget of 3.2 billion VND from the National Target Program on New Rural Development; supporting 34 cooperatives to participate in projects linking production development according to value chains; 8 cooperatives implementing projects on developing rural industries, developing production associated with product processing with a support budget of 3.26 billion VND. In addition, the province has also paid attention to policies on establishing new cooperatives in the fields of agriculture, industry, and handicrafts in terms of infrastructure such as building headquarters, supporting the construction of factories, warehouses, electrical works and irrigation systems, etc.

Further promoting the role of the collective economy, on the basis of Resolution No. 20-NQ/TW dated June 16, 2022 of the 5th Conference of the Party Central Committee (13th tenure) on continuing to innovate, develop and improve the efficiency of the collective economy in the new period, the Party Executive Committee of Tuyen Quang province, 17th tenure, issued an Action Program to lead and direct the implementation of this Resolution. Accordingly, the province strives to have over 300 cooperative groups by 2030; over 600 cooperatives with over 13,000 members. Of which, over 50 agricultural cooperatives apply high technology to the production and consumption of agricultural products; develop agricultural commodity value chains associated with production linkages, providing processing services and consuming agricultural products; promote participation in the supply chain to bring agricultural products directly exported abroad.

To achieve this goal, all levels, sectors and localities need to take more drastic measures to remove shortcomings and difficulties, creating favorable conditions for cooperatives to develop. Cooperatives should proactively link up and promote internal resources to effectively develop various types of services and products.

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