Removing capital bottlenecks for high-tech agriculture

The State Bank has issued a policy to encourage high-tech agricultural enterprises to borrow capital for production and business. However, after nearly half a year of implementing this policy, not many enterprises have been able to access capital.

Finalize the criteria

In March 2017, the Government issued Resolution 30/NQ-CP, which mentioned a VND100,000 billion credit package for high-tech agricultural enterprises (CNC). Implementing the Government's direction, on April 24, 2017, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) issued Decision 813/QD-NHNN on the program to encourage the development of CNC and clean agriculture. Accordingly, high-tech agricultural enterprises are entitled to borrow capital at preferential interest rates of 0.5 - 1.5% higher than market interest rates.

The model of growing clean vegetables in off-season in greenhouses using new technology has been applied in many fields in Nghe An. Photo: Document

However, according to the assessment of Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong, Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, the number of enterprises granted certificates of hi-tech agricultural enterprises in areas and regions applying hi-tech agriculture is still limited. Due to the limited subjects, outstanding loans in this field cannot be accelerated.

"Currently, businesses are still researching this program, so they have not yet submitted loan applications and have not yet taken out bank loans. They are still comparing with the criteria for CNC agriculture and clean agriculture according to Resolution 30. According to the feedback from commercial banks, this is a new program. Therefore, commercial banks are also completing guidance documents for branches in the system to implement this program," Ms. Hong added.

According to Mr. Le Van Tam, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lam Son Sugarcane Joint Stock Company, CNC agriculture requires a lot of capital and procedures for borrowing capital for production. Although the Government has a policy of providing preferential interest rate loans, businesses and farmers still have many difficulties in accessing them. Besides, the biggest difficulty at present is the problem of fragmented, small and scattered land.

According to Ms. Thai Huong, Chairwoman of TH Group, the government needs to simplify the procedures for granting certificates to businesses applying CNC in agriculture and have preferential policies on tariffs and legal procedures that are more suitable to reality.

Currently, the country has 3 CNC application agricultural zones approved by the Prime Minister: Hau Giang, Phu Yen, Bac Lieu. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has also granted certificates to 26 CNC application enterprises, of which 9 enterprises apply CNC in the field of cultivation.

Land property certificate

One problem in lending capital to CNC agricultural enterprises is that assets formed on agricultural land such as greenhouses, net houses, factories, equipment, etc. have great value but are not certified to be mortgaged for bank loans.

Regarding this issue, Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong said that in Resolution 30, the Government assigned the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) to issue guidelines. Regarding the field of CNC agricultural lending and clean agriculture, in terms of risk, the investment value is very large. In addition, in Vietnam, there are no prevention tools, insurance policies are not widespread, and the consumption market is not stable, making businesses and people hesitant to invest in production in this field.

Regarding the issue of assets formed on land, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha said that the Ministry believes that investing in CNC agriculture requires a large investment in assets on land. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has drafted a circular to confirm and record those assets. Currently, the Ministry is seeking opinions from the Judiciary and a number of ministries and branches. In the coming time, a circular will be issued to guide this. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has accepted the Prime Minister's direction and we completely agree on this necessity and will submit and issue it soon.

According to Minister-Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung, the Prime Minister has assigned the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to develop criteria for identifying hi-tech agricultural enterprises, assigned the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to propose to the Government to amend circulars related to investment assets on leased land, create conditions for enterprises to mortgage loans, and also amend issues related to land leased from people.

In addition, the Government has received a proposal report from the Standing Committee of the Ha Nam Provincial Party Committee and the Thai Binh Provincial People's Committee for localities to pilot the implementation of the State leasing land from the people, then the State leases it back to enterprises. After that, the ministries and branches are required to report to the Politburo. This is a major policy to remove difficulties for CNC agricultural enterprises.

According to HV/baotintuc