MARD wants to cooperate with De Heus in building new cooperatives models

At the meeting, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan expressed his pleasure to welcome Ms. Elsbeth Akkeman - Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Vietnam and congratulated De Heus Vietnam on its excellent achievements after over 13 years of operation in Vietnam. Thereby, De Heus has risen to be the company with the largest scale of animal and aqua feed production currently with 23 factories and made the list of 100 best places to work in Vietnam.

Presently, the Netherlands is the EU partner with the largest foreign investment in Vietnam with nearly 400 projects and a total capital of about 11 billion USD, accounting for nearly 50% of the EU's total investment capital in Vietnam.

The Minister highly praised the relationship between Vietnam and the Netherlands, specifically cooperation in the field of agriculture. The Minister related this excellent diplomatic relationship to the Strategic Partnership on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in 2014.

The two sides also signed many important documents at the Prime Minister level such as the Record of Discussion on cooperation in food safety management in Vietnam in 2017 and the Record of Discussion on cooperation in sustainable agricultural transformation in the Mekong Delta in 2019. These are the basic cooperation frameworks for the two sides in the coming time.

Sharing with the two most senior leaders of De Heus Group, Minister Le Minh Hoan highly appreciated the business philosophy: “Everyday we are constantly trying to find ways to create and deliver safe, healthy food to a growing global population by providing its customers and their pets with the suitable products and services, ensuring sustainable growth of the business they are operating”.

“I am very pleased and confident that De Heus and Hung Nhon Groups have been implementing many large livestock projects/combinations across the country, focusing on the Central Highlands region”, shared the Minister.

Minister Le Minh Hoan suggested De Heus to continue investment in expanding production in Vietnam. Simultaneously, De Heus should continue to coordinate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and localities to build new cooperatives models similar to that of the Netherlands to form really competitive cooperative alliances, not only in the country but also in the entire region.

“I am proud that globally speaking as well as Vietnam-wise, De Heus Group not only develops business lines, but they really care about environmental issues, social responsibility, especially food safety, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, creating jobs for workers, developing sustainable agriculture…”, Ms. Elsbeth Akkeman emphasized.

She also affirmed that the Dutch Embassy to Vietnam is always ready to support local businesses. Especially building a supply chain of agricultural products to ensure safety with high quality.

Mr. Jacobus Johannes de Heus - Global General Director of the Dutch Royal De Heus Group, shared: “We thank the Government of Vietnam, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and localities for creating favorable conditions for the Group to obtain investment licenses as well as tax incentives and location selection for production, business in line with the Group's development strategy".

Sharing on the reasons for investing in Vietnam, Mr. Jacobus Johannes de Heus said: “Vietnam is a very important and attractive investment destination for us and sometimes even more attractive than the Netherlands. Because in Vietnam, there are independent, self-sufficient, go-getting and do-it-yourself agricultural breeders, and we are pleased to help these breeders develop”.

Koenraad Jacob de Heus (Dutch Royal De Heus Group) said: “We will focus on expanding the export market for agricultural products, especially product chains of pork, eggs, fish, milk. Because we believe that animal protein supply chains from farm to fork are essential to consumers”.