Lacking a ‘conductor’ to connect to the regional economy is the reason the Mekong Delta economy is unable to rise, said Vice Chairman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Relations Committee Nguyen Ngoc Tran.

At the Mekong Delta Economic Forum held last weekend in HCM City, Deputy Minister of Trade Luong Van Tu confirmed that WTO commitments still benefit Vietnamese agriculture.

Specifically, Vietnam can still maintain agricultural subsidies of 10% over output value, which is equivalent to VND4 trillion (US$250 million) a year. Vietnam also negotiated four agricultural tariff quotas for imported sugar, salt, eggs and tobacco.

However, in almost 13 provinces in the Mekong Delta, agricultural production is still in a small scale and shows the nature of a non-market economy. The region’s infrastructure is also very poor. WTO integration still seems to be far for this region.

The Mekong Delta annually exports around 4 millions tonnes of rice, mainly to poor markets only, for examle the Philippines, Indonesia, etc. In picky markets like Europe, Vietnamese rice can’t compete with Thai products.

Vice Chairman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Relations Committee Nguyen Ngoc Tran worried that with products of low quality, lack of trademarks and small production scale, the Mekong Delta economy can’t integrate into the WTO period.

Chairman of Tien Giang Province, Nguyen Huu Chi, said that his province is near HCM City but its infrastructure is too poor and its products have low value while the expenditure for inputs is increasing.

Vietnamese Belgium professor Nguyen Dang Hung regreted that the Mekong Delta doesn’t pay attention to attract brainpower from overseas Vietnamese to develop its economy.

Lacking a ‘conductor’ to connect the provincial economies in the Mekong Delta is claimed one of the major reasons that make the delta unable to develop. According to Mr Tran, it’s time to have a comprehensive development plan for the whole region, not for each province only.

Vice Chairman of Can Tho City, Nguyen Thanh Son, also said that Can Tho, which is considered the core of the region, can’t help but ‘pull up’ other provinces in the Mekong Delta region, but it needs support from 13 provinces and the central government as well.

Source: VNECONOMY