Statistics in the first 6 months of 2024, the GDP growth rate of the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector reached 3.38%, the highest in the first half of the year in the past 5 years. Of which, agriculture increased by 3.15%; forestry increased by 5.34%; fishery increased by 3.76%. Total export turnover reached 29.2 billion USD, up 19% over the same period in 2023.

However, in the context of the world facing many global challenges, such as geopolitical conflicts, depletion of natural resources, shrinking cultivated areas, global warming, saltwater intrusion, etc., promoting the application of scientific and technological advances in economic sectors in general and agriculture in particular is very urgent. Therefore, developing smart agriculture, high-tech agriculture (CNC), applying modern technology to agricultural production is one of the trends applied by many businesses, farmers, and cooperatives and has shown its effectiveness, contributing to bringing a new look to the agricultural sector.

Mr. Le Van Tuan - Deputy Head of Agribank Credit Policy Department said that with agricultural production in Vietnam facing many challenges, developing CNC agriculture is an inevitable trend of Vietnam's agricultural sector.

In its business strategy, Agribank identifies CNC agriculture as a priority sector and always offers many incentives to customers borrowing capital through the synchronous implementation of many solutions to create capital sources for credit growth and customer support.

In fact, Agribank constantly strives to improve processes, apply technology, shorten project appraisal time, and loan plans; reduce costs to expand capital for credit investment, helping customers access loans quickly; at the same time, actively implement policies on promoting green banking, commit to applying ESG standards and integrating them into business strategies to contribute to greening banking operations, protecting the environment and supporting the community, contributing to international commitments in Vietnam.

As soon as the State Bank issued Decision No. 813/QD-NHNN dated April 24, 2017 directing commercial banks to implement a loan program to encourage the development of hi-tech agriculture and clean agriculture, Agribank responded positively, immediately implementing a credit package of VND 50,000 billion and was the bank with the highest loan commitment among all registered commercial banks. As a result, up to now, Agribank's loan turnover since the program began has reached over VND 35,000 billion, with 40,000 customers.

In addition, customers borrowing capital under the Agribank's CNC agricultural development program and clean agriculture are exempted from money transfer fees within the Agribank system, and 50% reduction according to Agribank's current fee regulations for money transfers outside the Agribank system... Strengthening close coordination with local authorities and ministries to implement CNC agricultural development projects, while removing difficulties and obstacles for customers such as accessing bank capital right from the project's formation, mortgaged assets... Agribank is also actively implementing policies on promoting green banking, committing to applying ESG standards and integrating them into business strategies to contribute to greening banking operations, protecting the environment and supporting the community.

The Bank is coordinating with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to promote banking services for agricultural production and rural development through programs, projects and plans managed, chaired and implemented by the Ministry, including the Project "Sustainable development of 1 million hectares of high-quality rice and low-emission rice cultivation associated with green growth in the Mekong Delta by 2030". The project is associated with reorganizing the production system according to the value chain, applying sustainable farming processes to increase value, sustainable development of the rice industry, improve production and business efficiency, income and life of rice growers, protect the environment, adapt to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to the implementation of Vietnam's international commitments. Along with that, actively participate in many projects related to environmental protection issues sponsored by the World Bank and financial institutions such as: improving the quality and safety of agricultural products and developing biogas programs; Coastal resources project for sustainable development; Disaster risk management; Support for low-carbon agriculture...

In addition to the achieved results, Agribank representative shared that in the process of lending capital for implementing CNC agriculture, there are still many difficulties and obstacles. Specifically, policies related to CNC agricultural development in the past have many shortcomings; lack of investment capital for CNC agricultural development; land accumulation and infrastructure in rural areas still have many shortcomings; difficulties in research and technology transfer; compliance of parties participating in the value chain and the agricultural insurance market has not yet developed proportionally; the market for agricultural products is still limited and unstable, the competitiveness and economic efficiency of production of some products are still low, not commensurate with the level of investment; the quality of human resources in the agricultural sector still has many shortcomings compared to the requirements of development and integration.

To overcome difficulties in capital investment, Agribank leaders proposed a number of synchronous and drastic solutions to promote the development of CNC agriculture in the coming time related to the policy mechanism to support CNC agricultural enterprises; market development, support services for CNC application activities in agricultural product consumption. In addition, building application models, transferring scientific and technological advances to serve agriculture. Building and applying a system of standards and technical regulations in agricultural product quality management step by step in accordance with international standards (Global Gap); creating many agricultural products with outstanding quality, features, high added value, environmentally friendly and ensuring public health.