Hanoi (VNA) -Rice products will be certified under the “Vietnam Rice” national brand if theyare produced in accordance with VietGAP or GlobalGAP standards - goodagricultural practices to produce clean and safe farm products.

This is one of theregulations drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)to build, promote, manage and certify the national brand for Vietnamese riceexports.

The draft document,including seven chapters and 23 articles, has been circulated for experts’opinions.

According to MARD, althoughVietnam annually exports five to seven million tonnes of rice per year,the amount of revenue the country earns is less than other countries alreadyfamous for their rice products such as Thailand and India.

Besides this, Vietnameserice is also facing great competition from the rice brands of these countries.Thus, speeding up the promotion of the national rice brand is one of the urgentsolutions to help increase the product’s added value, and subsequently exportrevenue.

Vo Thanh Do, deputydirector of MARD’s Agri-product Processing and Market Development Department,said building a national brand for Vietnamese rice (Vietnam Rice) will promotethe image of products and create trust among consumers.

As a result, the competitivenessof Vietnam’s rice products in the world market will be enhanced, Do said.

Do said the regulation aimsto ensure rice products have stable characteristics and meet requirements interms of quality and origin traceability.

However, it also raisedconcerns among agricultural experts and business insiders.

According to Nguyen Anh Tuanfrom the Northern Food Corporation, the application of VietGap standards inrice cultivation is important and should be encouraged.

However, the reality isthat the area where rice is cultivated according to VietG standards is notlarge, Tuan said.

Sharing the view, Nguyen DucCuong, a representative from the Tuong Lan Agricultural Products ProcessingCompany, said many regions in Vietnam have few rice production areas meetingthe VietGap standard due to the scattered production situation.

Therefore, rice enterpriseswould find it hard to meet requirements, Cuong added.

Do acknowledged that acompany producing 400,000 tonnes of rice would need some 80,000ha of rawmaterial, adding that if the annual export volume is taken into account, theareas meeting VietGAP standard are not enough.

Tran Xuan Dinh, deputy headof MARD’s Cultivation Department, said the Vietnamese rice national brandshould not be granted to rice products satisfying VietGAP. It should instead begranted to those meeting Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) in general.

Dinh explained that in manyrice growing regions, land and water indicators are within acceptable limitsfor the application of GAP techniques.

In addition, standards forsafe agricultural products TCVN: 11892/12017 may be applied to replace andevaluate the quality of Vietnamese rice, he said.

According to the draftregulations, the types of rice bearing the national brand certification must bewhite rice, white fragrant rice and white glutinous rice grown in areas plannedby the State and meet the quality requirements as regulated.

However, Phan Van Hoa, Directorof the Vinh Hoa Science and Technology Co Ltd, said the current rice varietiesof Vietnam, even glutinous rice and aromatic rice, are in different colours, sothe above regulation will reduce the amount of qualified products.

With regard to this issue,Do said the country currently does not have many varieties of coloured rice,and this regulation only aims at rice products for export under the Governmentscheme, therefore it should focus on three groups of rice.

Do said the Agri-productProcessing and Market Development Department is assigned by MARD to registerthe ownership of the “Gao Vietnam/Vietnam Rice” national brand at theIntellectual Property Department.

The draft regulationson building, promoting, managing and certifying the national brand forVietnamese rice exports are expected to be finalised this month.

Rice is among the productsthat have witnessed high growth rate in recent years. The volume of riceexported in November is estimated at 389,000 tonnes, worth 192 million USD.

The figures for 11 monthsof the year were 5.49 million tonnes and 2.48 billion USD, respectively,representing an increase of 23.4 percent in terms of volume and 24.2 percent invalue over the same period in 2016.

China continues torank first in the rice import market of Vietnam in the first 10 months of2017 with 39.8 percent of the market share.-VNA