The 16th meeting of the National Focal Point for the ASEAN Cocoa Club
(ACC) on ASEAN Cooperation and Joint Approaches in Agriculture and
Forest Products Promotion Scheme opened in Ho Chi Minh City on May
22.
Addressing the event, Nguyen Van Hoa, Deputy Head
of the Cultivation Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development (MARD) said that cocoa has been grown widely in
Vietnam since 200.
The country now has a total
cocoa-cultivating area of 25,000 hectares, mainly in the Central
Highlands, Southeastern and Mekong Delta regions, he noted.
Vietnam targets to expand the area to 35,000 hectares by 2015 and
50,000 hectares by 2020, harvesting an output of 26,000 tonnes and
52,000 tonnes of cocoa, respectively, he added.
Hoa
said in order to fulfil the goal, his department has focused on creating
new varieties and researching farming techniques, helping increase
productivity, while encouraging farmers to grow cocoa.
During the meeting, participants discussed and shared experience in
measures to effectively apply the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP),
food safety methods and management of diseases on cocoa trees.
They also heard reports on the ASEAN’s Common Effective Preferential
Tariff, non-tariff barriers and outcomes of the pilot cocoa cultivation
programmes in Indonesia and Malaysia.-VNA