On the afternoon of February 6, at the Government Headquarters, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh received Mr. Khuat Dong Ngoc, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and his delegation who are visiting and working in Vietnam.
FAO was established on October 16, 1945, and currently has 192 member countries. Since FAO established relations with Vietnam and opened a representative office in Hanoi in 1978, the relationship between Vietnam and FAO has developed well.
Currently, Vietnam and FAO are coordinating to implement the Cooperation Programme Framework for the period 2022-2026, focusing on 4 pillars, including: (i) better production; (ii) better nutrition; (iii) better environment; and (iv) better life through 16 projects with a total budget of nearly 30 million USD.
The FAO Director-General is on a visit to continue promoting cooperation with Vietnam in the fields of agriculture, food, environmental protection and rural development in the new context of global trade and climate change.
Speaking at the meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated that Vietnam highly appreciates the cooperative relationship with FAO over the past years, both in the past difficult period and in the current period of national development, especially in promoting agricultural and rural development and transforming the food system sustainably.
The Prime Minister especially thanked FAO for mobilizing emergency support resources (worth 1.9 million USD) to help the Vietnamese people recover from Typhoon Yagi in September 2024; he believed that the cooperative relationship between FAO and Vietnam will continue to develop.
On the international level, the Prime Minister congratulated and highly appreciated FAO for its achievements and important contributions as an important international forum, source of knowledge, advice and leading source of mobilization and financial provision in the field of food and agriculture, with many initiatives in line with the interests of developing countries.
The Prime Minister said that in 2024, although the proportion of agriculture in GDP will only be about 11%, Vietnam's agricultural sector will continue to affirm its important role and be a pillar of the economy, firmly ensuring food security, contributing to social stability and livelihoods for people, contributing to ensuring social security, leaving no one behind.
Vietnam has also actively participated in many international initiatives and efforts to contribute to ensuring global food security and implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Citing the Vietnamese saying "A bite when hungry is worth a whole package when full", the Prime Minister said that Vietnam always appreciates the help of the international community in difficult times and now Vietnam has made many important contributions to world food security, especially increasing rice exports when some countries restrict rice exports while the supply chain is broken.
Vietnam is currently implementing a number of major programs and projects, such as the "National Action Plan for Transforming a Transparent, Responsible and Sustainable Food System in Vietnam by 2030"; the Project "Sustainable development of 1 million hectares of high-quality rice, reducing emissions associated with green growth in the Mekong Delta by 2030".
To enhance cooperation between the two sides, the Prime Minister asked FAO to continue to support Vietnam in the process of restructuring the agricultural sector towards increasing added value and developing green, sustainable, smart, and climate change-responsive development; industrialization, rural urbanization, green, clean, and beautiful rural development; promoting digital transformation, etc.
Vietnam will cooperate with FAO to successfully organize the program to celebrate the 80th anniversary of FAO's establishment in 2025 as well as international cooperation programs, such as sharing experiences with African countries in exploiting land potential, eliminating hunger and reducing poverty.
For his part, FAO Director General Khuat Dong Ngoc highly appreciated Vietnam's development achievements in hunger eradication and poverty reduction, improving people's lives, and developing agriculture, typically the very successful implementation of the One Commune One Product (OCOP) Program, exporting agricultural products, especially rice, fruits, etc.
He believes that Vietnam will continue to grow strongly, first of all in 2025, and can double its GDP in the coming years, on the way to becoming a high-income country, bringing an increasingly prosperous and happy life to its people.
The Director General affirmed that Vietnam is a model with valuable achievements and lessons that many countries admire and want to learn from; FAO always supports Vietnam's initiatives in sustainable, green agriculture, such as the 1 million hectare high-quality, low-emission rice program.
Mr. Khuat Dong Ngoc assessed that although Vietnam does not have much land, it is in a historical position, with conditions that no other country has to transform agriculture and food to be more sustainable, inclusive, more effective, more resilient, and contribute more to the world, when Vietnamese farmers are relatively young and have the attention and investment of the State.
Director General Khuat Dong Ngoc suggested that Vietnam continue to strengthen cooperation with FAO, especially promoting its important role in effectively coordinating the implementation of the tripartite cooperation programs of FAO-Vietnam-African countries, South-South cooperation, contributing to the development and transformation of sustainable agriculture and food in the world.
Source: https://baotainguyenmoitruong.vn/tong-giam-doc-fao-viet-nam-se-tang-gap-doi-gdp-trong-nhung-nam-toi-386380.html
Comment (0)