ARTICLE

An Empirical Study On Vietnam’s

Participation in The Global Agricultural
Value Chain
Nguyen Thi Phuong Linh
Faculty of International Business and Economics, VNU University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University - Hanoi,
Vietnam.

Vu Thanh Huong
Faculty of International Business and Economics, VNU University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University - Hanoi,
Vietnam.

ABSTRACT
Agriculture is one of the vital economic sectors in the economic development of Vietnam. Using two datasets from
UNCTAD's MRIO database, the paper aims at assessing Vietnam’s participation in the global agricultural value chain
in 2010-2017 and comparing it with ASEAN-5 countries’ participation by calculating backward linkage, forward
linkage, position, and participation index. Research results show that Vietnam is moving towards the upstream
position and the country’s level of participation tends to increase mainly due to forward linkage participation. There
is more diversification in the agricultural export markets but a high concentration of the import markets in Asia.
While some commodity groups such as forestry, pocks, sugarcane, rubber, and paddy have more advantages when
participating in the global value chain, other groups such as fishery, poultry, cow, and tea have faced passive
participation. In comparison with ASEAN-5 countries, Vietnam's participation index is relatively high, but its
position index is quite lagging. The paper ends by providing some policy implications for Vietnam to improve its
participation in the agricultural global value chain, focusing on taking advantage of free trade agreements,
applying advanced technologies in agriculture, strengthening brand names for agricultural products, and
improving the quality of logistics services.

Journal of Commercial Biotechnology (2022) 27(4), 41–50. DOI: 10.5912/jcb1352

Keywords: Global value chain; agriculture; Vietnam; ASEAN-5 countries

INTRODUCTION The development of Vietnam's agricultural sector not

only shows its importance to the national economy but

S
ince the 1990s, the agricultural sector has become
one of the main drivers of GDP growth in Vietnam
and always played a vital role in the country’s social
and economic development by ensuring national food
security, creating jobs, improving income, and generating
foreign reserves. While the industry's export turnover in
1986 only attained USD 486.2 million, after 35 years of
renovation and integration, this figure reached USD 41.15
billion in 2020 and contributed about 11% and 15%
respectively to the total export value and GDP of the
country [1].
also affirms its position in the international agricultural
production network. In 2019, Vietnam's cashew nut
exports ranked first in the world, rice exports ranked
second and coffee exports ranked fifth. In addition, in the
period 2007-2019, some other key agricultural products
of the country substantially improved their positions in
the international market such as rubber exports from the
31st to 13th, tea exports from the 13th to 9th; and fruit and
vegetable exports from 53rd to 23rd [2].
Besides these achievements, Vietnam's participation in

DECEMBER 2022 I VOLU ME 27 I NU MB ER 4 41

 the global agricultural value chain still has certain framework related to participation in the global
limitations. According to [3], Vietnam's agriculture has agricultural value chain, and the third part explains the
participated in global value chains (GVCs) at low value- methodology and data. After that, the paper analyzes
added stages and largely relied on exports of raw Vietnam’s participation in the global agricultural value
products. In addition, there is a lack of linkages within the chain before proposing some implications for the country
agricultural industry and between the agricultural sector to enhance its participation.
and other economic sectors, resulting in too many
intermediate layers in the agricultural value chain. While THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
other countries in the world only have about 2-4
intermediaries on average, this figure in Vietnam is 5-7.
Definition and structure of the global
Although some previous studies such as [1-3], and [4] agricultural value chain
have attempted to clarify Vietnam's participation in the
The definition of Global value chain had been synthesized
global agricultural value chain, those studies are mainly
and defined by here are different terms to define how
based on secondary data and information collected from
GVCs are organized and operated, such as commodity
journals, and reports of prestigious organizations in
chains [6], supply chains [7], and value networks [8].
Vietnam and abroad. There are very few studies analyzing
While the concept of supply chain explains the
Vietnam's participation in the global agricultural value
relationship between a business, and its suppliers and
chain based on an orthodox research framework that has
customers to provide products or services at a lower cost
been widely applied in GVCs analysis. In addition, there
[9], the concept of value chain emphasizes that entities
is a lack of studies comparing Vietnam’s participation in
can be connected to create certain value, thereby creating
GVCs with that of other ASEAN countries. Given these
their competitive advantage [10]. [11], [12], and [13]
research gaps, this paper is one of the leading studies
stated that GVCs are a series of activities arranged,
adopting the theoretical framework of [5] to determine
organized, and systematically linked together through a
the position of Vietnam’s agriculture in GVCs, clarifying
network worldwide. [14] as a chain of activities that
its level of overall participation and breaking down its
businesses and employees carry out to bring a product
participation in forward and backward linkages in
from concept to end-use on a global scale. Regarding the
comparison with those of ASEAN-5 countries. On that
description of the global agricultural value chain, [15]
ground, the paper proposes some implications to improve
stated it is a set of actors and activities required to move
the status of Vietnam’s participation in the global
an agricultural product from production in the field to
agriculture value chain.
final consumption. Figure 1 shows a typical global
The paper is organized into 4 parts. After the agricultural value chain and identifies the stages and
Introduction, the second part reviews the theoretical actors involved.

Figure 1: Global agricultural value chain. Source: [15]

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The first stage is Input (pre-production), which includes
various necessary materials for agricultural production.
The required inputs depend on specific agricultural
products, but the crucial inputs include land, labor,
farming equipment, and water. Other inputs for
agricultural products are seeds, weeds, and disease-
control drugs. Services in the pre-production stage can be
veterinary services, agricultural extension, market
information, credit, and certification for agricultural
organic production.
The second stage is Growing/Production, which requires
critical inputs such as land, water, labor, credit,
agricultural services, etc. In this stage, the actors involved
can vary with the scale of production. In general, the three
main actors in the production stage include small-scale
farms, medium-scale farms, and large-scale commercial
farms. However, these actors are not necessarily mutually
exclusive but can cooperate and support each other.
The post-production stage includes (i) Processing and
Packaging, (ii) Storage and Distribution, and (iii) the End
Market. Three main actors involved in Processing and
Packaging, and Storage and Distribution include local
cooperatives, small and medium enterprises, and large
enterprises such as transnational corporations. In the End
Market, wholesalers and retailers purchase products to
serve local, national, and international markets.
Definition of participation in the global
value chains
Initially, research on participation in GVCs at the
country/industry level had been proposed by [16].
Accordingly, a country/industry can engage in the vertical
specialization of the production process in two ways
namely (i) Using imported intermediate inputs to
produce exported products and (ii) Exporting
intermediate goods used by other countries as inputs in
the production of exported goods. However, [16] made
two strong assumptions to control their model. Firstly,
the intensity of using imported inputs is the same for
goods produced for export and domestic consumption.
This assumption however is not valid for large quantities
of outsourcing trade in developing countries. Secondly,
all imported intermediate inputs are 100% foreign-
sourced. This assumption underestimates the share of
domestic value-added in exports, especially for developed
countries where their imports often have a large share of
their own value-added. Therefore, although [16] were
among the first to analyze the participation of
country/industry in GVCs along the production process,
given these assumptions, their approach was not suitable
for the current context.
[5] inherited and overcame the research limitations of
[16] by splitting a country's total exports into five
components including (1) Domestic value-added
reflected in the exports of final goods and services that the
importer directly absorbs; (2) Domestic value-added
reflected in the export of intermediate goods that the
importer directly uses to produce the necessary products
in the country; (3) Domestic value-added reflected in the
export of intermediate goods that the importer directly
uses to produce the good and exports to third countries
(indirect value-added exports); (4) Domestic value-added
reflected in the export of intermediate goods used directly
by the importer to produce the good and exported back
to the source country; (5) Foreign value-added reflected
in total exports. According to [5], the sum of (1), (2), and
(3) equals the added value of each country's exports to the
world; the sum of (1), (2), (3), and (4) equals the domestic
share of a country's total exports; and the sum of (4) and
(5) equals the share of trade counted twice in the
international trade data. Meanwhile, the model of [16]
only takes into account two sources of added value, (3)
and (5), thus omitting a large part of international
production-sharing activities.
[5] stated that the country/industry participation in
GVCs is the participation in the backward linkage
representing foreign value-added shown in total exports;
and participation in the forward linkage representing
domestic value-added reflected in the export of
intermediate goods that the importer directly uses to
produce the goods and exports them to third countries.
Those linkages are determined based on the origin of the
added value of the intermediate goods as represented in
the total exports of the particular country/industry. Many
previous studies have applied this approach such as [17-
20].
METHODOLOGY AND DATA
Methodology
This paper adopted the approach proposed by [5] to
measure Vietnam’s participation in the global agricultural
value chain through the following four indicators: (i)
Backward linkage index; (ii) Forward linkage index; (iii)
DECEMBER 2022 I VOLU ME 27 I NU MB ER 4 43
 Position index and (iv) and Participation index.
FVA
Backward linkage = (1)
GE
DVX
Forward linkage = (2)
GE
DVX FVA
GVC_Position = log �1 + � − log ( 1 +
GE GE
DVX FVA
GVC_Participation = + (4)
GE GE
In which, GVC_Position is the Position index;
GVC_Participation is the Participation index; FVA is
value-added from abroad shown in total exports; DVX is
domestic value-added reflected in the export of
intermediate goods that the importer directly uses to
produce the goods and exports them to third countries;
GE: Total exports of the reference country.
The backward linkage index is shown in the imports of
foreign inputs or intermediate goods for producing
exported products.
The forward linkage index is reflected in the exports of
intermediate goods that are continued to be used for
producing goods by the importers for exporting to a third
country.
The position index is used to determine the upstream or
downstream position of a country/industry in GVCs. If
the position index is above 0, the reference country is
located upstream of GVCs. In contrast, when the position
index is smaller than 0, the country is located downstream
of GVCs. Typically, a country/industry participating
upstream will gain more value-added than downstream.
However, [17] and [19] indicated that for most countries,
regardless of income group differences, participation in
GVCs can bring them positive changes even when they
are located downstream because they can import inputs
that often have higher quality and complexity than those
in the domestic market. Therefore, the countries can
improve the sophistication and diversification of their
exports.
The participation index shows a country/industry's level
of participation in GVCs. A higher index means stronger
participation. An in-depth analysis of this indicator also
shows whether the country is mainly participating in the
backward or forward linkage at a particular time. As
indicated by [5], both the position index and the
44 JOURNAL OF COMMERCIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY
participation index must be adopted to assess
comprehensively a country's participation in GVCs.
Data
In GVCs studies, the three most widely used databases are
the World Input-Output Database (WIOD), which is a
) (3) collaborative project led by researchers at the University
of Groningen, the Trade Value Added (TiVA) database
compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), and the MRIO global supply
chain database built by a team of researchers at the
University of Sydney. The purpose of these three
databases is to trace value-added flows between countries.
In this paper, the MRIO database is adopted to determine
the participation of Vietnam and other five ASEAN
countries including Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines,
Malaysia, and Indonesia (ASEAN-5 countries) in the
global agricultural value chain as its advantages over two
other databases. There is no data for Vietnam in the
WIOD database and TiVA includes data for only 65
countries while the MRIO database covers data from 189
countries for the period 1990-2018.
MRIO database is divided into two datasets: (i) Country
to sector database aims to determine the country/sector
participation in the backward linkage in GVCs, or
measure the FVA index; (ii) Sector to country database
aims to determine the participation of the
country/industry in the forward linkage in GVCs or
measure DVX index. The paper uses these two datasets to
calculate the participation of Vietnam and ASEAN-5
countries in the global agricultural value chain as a whole
and for 11 groups of products particularly including
Paddy (all kinds), Raw rubber, Coffee beans, Sugarcane,
Tea, Pig (all kinds), Cow (all kinds), Poultry, Irritation
and other agricultural services, Forestry and Fishery for
the period from 2010 to 2017, after Vietnam and ASEAN-
5 countries overcame the 2008-2009 financial crisis and
started to recover their economies. To provide a
comprehensive picture of Vietnam's participation in the
global agricultural value chain, the paper compares
Vietnam’s participation with ASEAN-5’s participation
since they have similar socio-economic development
levels to Vietnam and also have agriculture as a critical
sector in national economic development.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Vietnam's overall participation in the
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global agricultural value chain: Position
and Participation indexes
In 2010-2017, Vietnam's position in the global
agricultural value chain experienced an upward trend.
From 2010 to 2016, Vietnam was located in the
downstream position, but then it moved forward and
gained the upstream position in 2017 (Figure 2).
Specifically, the position index increased from -0.047 in
2010 to 0.0064 in 2017, implying an initial effort of
Vietnam's agricultural sector to move to a more beneficial
position in GVCs.
In the period 2010 to 2017, Vietnam's participation level
in the global agricultural value chain fluctuated but still
witnessed a slight increase. The participation index in
2010 was 46.7% and reached 49.88% by the end of the
period with the average participation rate for the whole
period of about 47% (Figure 2), showing that Vietnam is
increasingly making efforts to expand its influence in the
global agricultural production network.
Figure 2: Position and Participation indexes of Vietnam
in the global agricultural value chain, 2010-2017. Source:
Authors’ calculations
These results are attributed to Vietnam’s high openness
to the world economy [22], dynamic participation in free
trade agreements (FTAs) [23], increasing adoption of
technology in agricultural production, more active
involvement of farmers and enterprises in the agricultural
market and a newly established agricultural value chain
within the country [24]. So far, Vietnam has joined 15
FTAs in which there are a variety of preferential
commitments related to agricultural products [23].
Vietnam has gradually established domestic value chains
to link three pillars of agricultural restructuring including
tra fish, forestry, and rice [24]. Technology for variety
selection and breeding, cultivation activities, and pest
prevention and control have been focused on with
numerous national projects. In addition, the number of
participants in Vietnam’s agricultural market has
increased, in which some large domestic and foreign
companies have paid more attention to agricultural
processing [25]. Another point worth commenting on is
that Vietnam’s policies to attract investment in
agriculture have been improved, creating a firm
foundation for increasing the competitiveness of the
agricultural sector.
Breaking Vietnam’s participation into backward and
forward linkages provides insight into its participation.
For participation in the backward linkage, Vietnam’s
FVA index decreased from 30.10% in 2010 to 24.1% in
2017 (Figure 3). On the contrary, in the forward linkage,
the DVX index increased sharply from 16.60% to 25.87%
in the same period, indicating that Vietnam is increasing
exports of intermediate goods for other countries'
production and exports. Therefore, Vietnam's deeper
participation in the global agricultural value chain is
mainly due to an increase in forward participation,
showing a more active and beneficial engagement of the
country's agricultural industry in the international
market.
Figure 3: Vietnam’s participation in backward and
forward linkage of the global agricultural value chain,
2010 – 2017. Source: Authors’ calculations
The positive shift of Vietnam's position in the global
agricultural value chain from downstream to upstream
originated in 2015. Specifically, in 2015, although
Vietnam's agricultural sector faced with a wide range of
difficulties such as natural disasters and volatile markets,
appropriate and timely guidelines and policies enabled
Vietnam to overcome these difficulties and achieve
impressive results. Typically, there was a spectacular
DECEMBER 2022 I VOLU ME 27 I NU MB ER 4 45
 breakthrough in fruit and vegetable exports due to the collection, preliminary processing, and raw product
government's direction of expanding the exporting exports. 90% of Vietnam’s agricultural products are raw
markets to some stringent markets such as the United or at a low level of processing [24], and fragmented
States (US), Australia, the European Union (EU), and agricultural production with many small households has
Japan and dramatically increasing the GAP-standard resulted in high investment costs and unstable and low-
cultivated area of fruit and vegetable. Rice production in quality agricultural products. The participation of
2015 also witnessed a strong increase of 231,000 tons Vietnam in high value-added stages such as marketing
compared to that of the previous year as the government and distribution is very limited. Logistics and distribution
adopted appropriate policies to overcome winter of agricultural products have faced numerous limitations,
warming problems and respond to the market demand affecting the quality and perishable rate of the products.
increase. The forestry industry grew tremendously by Another disadvantage is the lack of large domestic firms
7.9% in 2015 because of efficiently taking advantage of which are strong enough to lead other domestic firms and
demand increases in both domestic and world markets cooperate with foreign corporations. The Vietnamese
[26]. As a result, although Vietnam’s overall agricultural agricultural market is made up of mainly small and low-
export turnover in 2015 decreased by 0.81% compared to competitive domestic firms whereas the current
that of the previous year, the country’s agricultural participation of Vietnam in high value-added stages has
production still increased by 2.6% and several key relied on foreign direct investment companies.
agricultural products experienced encouraging increases
in exports, contributing substantially to Vietnam's Vietnam's participation in the global
movement to an upstream position in the global agricultural value chain by commodity
agricultural value chain.
groups and partners
In 2016 - 2020, Vietnam has also made enormous efforts
The paper further analyzes Vietnam's participation in the
to maintain and secure its position in the agricultural
global agricultural value chain by commodity groups and
value chain with several guiding principles namely: (i)
trade partners. The results show that the commodity
Reorganizing the production process to be suitable for the
groups in which Vietnam is more involved in the forward
supply chain and restructuring agricultural, forestry, and
linkage include forestry, irrigation services & other
fishery production; (ii) Strengthening the development of
agricultural services, pig, sugarcane, raw rubber, and
processing industry and consumption market; (iii)
paddy (Figure 4). These commodity groups are located
Improving capacity and efficiency in the prevention and
upstream of the chain, capable of capturing more added
control of cross-border epidemics and limiting negative
value. Meanwhile, Vietnam is more involved in the
impacts of natural disasters; (iv) Continuing to improve
backward linkages with fishery, poultry, cow, tea, and
and organize the effective implementation of land
coffee beans, which are located downstream of the chain.
policies, and attracting investment to the agricultural
sector. As a result, in recent years, Vietnam has recorded
numerous important achievements in the agricultural
sector. By the end of 2020, Vietnam had already achieved
all 15 important criteria in the agricultural sector strategy,
of which, 5 outstanding achievements are: (i) GDP
growth rate of the agricultural sector in 5 years was at
2.71%/year, exceeding the set goal of 2.6%; (ii) Export
turnover in 2020 alone was USD 41 billion, exceeding the
set goal of USD 39 - 40 billion; (iii) Forest coverage rate
in 2020 attained 42%; (iv) Over 63% of the communes met
new rural standards; and (v) the annual income of rural
residents in 2020 reached VND 43 million/person [27].
Figure 4: Vietnam’s participation in the global
Despite Vietnam’s shift towards an upstream position agricultural value chain by commodity group in
and forward linkage, Vietnam has still mainly 2017.Source: Authors’ calculations
participated in low value-added stages of GVCs such as

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Regarding Vietnam's partners when participating in the cross-border trading. Even the Covid-19 pandemic forces
global agricultural value chain, while the exporting global producers to reconsider manufacturing strategies
partners are more diverse, the importing markets for and suppliers to minimize risks, changing global suppliers
agricultural products have not changed much and cannot happen overnight, and it's a complex decision that
concentrated in Asia in the period 2010 - 2017. takes time and resources to undertake. Therefore,
Vietnam has maintained China, Japan, and ASEAN
For participating in the forward linkage, in 2010, Vietnam countries as importing partners for a long time.
mainly exported to neighboring Asian countries such as
China, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Australia, and a few
European markets such as Germany, Belgium, and the
Netherlands (Figure 5). By 2017, Vietnam shifted its
markets to penetrate deeper into the European market
such as Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, the
Netherlands, and the UK, and approach the American
market such as the US and Canada. Although no longer
occupying a dominant consumption share of Vietnamese
agricultural products, Asian countries such as China,
Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan were still Vietnam’s
important partners in agricultural trade. This shift to
more diversification in export markets is mainly driven Figure 6: Vietnam’s trading partner in the backward
by Vietnam’s efficient efforts to take advantage of linkage in the global agricultural value chain in 2010 and
opportunities from FTAs to increase agricultural exports, 2017. Source: Authors’ calculations
especially from new-generation FTAs.
Comparing Vietnam's and ASEAN-5
countries’ participation in the global
agricultural value chain

Vietnam and other ASEAN-5 are located upstream

(Figure 7), showing that they tend to enjoy higher added
value when participating in the global agricultural value
chain than Singapore. The key reason is that these
countries have more advantages in agricultural
production, while Singapore is quite scarce in land and
water which are two key factors to grow agricultural
products.

Figure 5: Vietnam’s trading partner in the forward

linkage in the global agricultural value chain in 2010 and
2017. Source: Authors’ calculations

For participating in the backward linkage in 2010 - 2017,

there is a big concentration in Vietnam’s import market
towards Northeast Asian and ASEAN countries including
China, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines,
which account for more than 50% of the total import
added value of Vietnam's agricultural industry (Figure 6).
In general, the import market is difficult to change,
especially for traditional partners with certain advantages
such as a favorable geographical position for cross-border
goods transportation and similar cultures that facilitate Figure 7: Position indexes of Vietnam and ASEAN-5
countries in the global agricultural value chain in 2010 –

DECEMBER 2022 I VOLU ME 27 I NU MB ER 4 47

 2017. Source: Authors’ calculations
A closer look at Vietnam's position compared to ASEAN-
5 countries shows that in 2010-2017, Indonesia had the
highest upstream position, followed by Thailand, the
Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and finally Singapore
which is located downstream of the chain. The position
gap between Vietnam and Indonesia is quite far, implying
that although Vietnam's participation in the global
agricultural value chain has recorded a positive shift to an
upstream position, compared to almost other ASEAN-5
countries, Vietnam is still lagging behind.
In 2010 - 2017, most countries, except Singapore, had a
low level of participation ranging from 30% to 50%
(Figure 8). Thus, Vietnam and ASEAN-5 countries still
Figure 8: Participation indexes of Vietnam and ASEAN-5 in the global agricultural value chain in 2010 – 2017.
Source: Authors’ calculations
Figure 9: Comparison of the participation of Vietnam
and ASEAN-5 countries in the global agricultural value
chain in 2010 and 2017. Source: Authors’ calculations
48 JOURNAL OF COMMERCIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY
have a lot of potential to enhance their role in the
international agricultural market. Singapore was the most
active participant with an average participation index of
about 70% between 2010 and 2017. However, the country
was mainly engaged in imports of foreign intermediate
goods for production and exports (Figure 9) due to the
scarcity of factors of agricultural production. In contrast,
other countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand,
Malaysia, and the Philippines were all mainly engaged in
exports of intermediate goods abroad, which then
continued to be exported to third countries due to the
relative availability of favorable factors for agriculture.
Among these countries, Vietnam had the highest level of
participation index which stayed around 45% and
reached nearly 50% in 2017.
CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY
IMPLICATIONS
Vietnam has achieved encouraging progress in
participating in the global agricultural value chain with a
gradual shift to an upstream position and an increasing
level of participation. The high openness to the world
economy, dynamic participation in FTAs, increasing
adoption of technology in agricultural production, more
active involvement of farmers and enterprises in the
agricultural market, a new domestic established
agricultural value chain, and a higher diversification of
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exporting markets have created premise and
opportunities for Vietnam to participate more in the
global agricultural value chain.
However, there are still some problems that Vietnam
must address when joining the global agricultural value
chain. Vietnam is highly dependent on traditional Asian
importing markets. Its participation has concentrated on
low value-added stages with unstable and low-quality
agricultural products in the context of inadequate
logistics and distribution of agricultural products.
Vietnam also lacks strong domestic companies that can
lead others in upgrading their participation in GVCs. A
wide range of Vietnam's key agricultural products
including fishery, poultry, cow, tea, and coffee have faced
quite passive participation in GVCs because of their heavy
dependence on foreign inputs. In comparison with
ASEAN-5 countries, Vietnam's position is lagging far
behind even though its participation level is relatively
high. Therefore, Vietnam needs to make more efforts to
upgrade its position in GVCs to catch up with other
ASEAN countries.
Firstly, to maintain a positive shift in the global
agricultural value chain position, Vietnam should
continue taking advantage of FTAs to diversify
agricultural import and export markets in a more
complicated and volatile global context. The research on
the impact of FTAs on the agricultural sector, and
Vietnam’s and FTAs partners’ commitments should be
undertaken to provide more information on the global
agricultural market and the requirement and standards of
potential markets.
Secondly, applying technologies in agriculture are
necessities for Vietnam to affirm and upgrade its position
in GVCs. On the one hand, Vietnam should promote
investment in research and development to improve the
productivity and quality of agricultural products towards
meeting international standards. On the other hand,
Vietnam should actively connect with organizations from
developed countries with advanced science and
technology in agriculture in order to improve the
productivity and quality of Vietnam’s agricultural
products.
Thirdly, Vietnam should strengthen local agricultural
brands in the international market. Vietnam has built a
chain of agricultural products at three levels including
national key products, provincial products, and local
products. Special emphasis has been placed on the
program "One Village, One Product" to promote internal
resources and increase the value of local products. The
immediate task required is to introduce these local
products to foreign consumers. In this context, the
support of agricultural associations in introducing and
advertising domestic agricultural products to foreign
consumers and distributors is an effective strategy.
Finally, Vietnam should focus on improving the quality
of logistics services for agricultural import and export
activities and developing a close linkage between key
participants in the domestic value chain. The inadequate
and high-cost logistics services, and loose linkage between
agricultural and logistics firms, and firms and farmers in
Vietnam have lowered the participation of Vietnam in
GVCs. Therefore, the improvement of logistics services
and the establishment of an efficient linkage between
domestic participants in the agricultural sector are of
great importance to enhance the competitiveness of
Vietnam’s agricultural products in GVCs.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURE
STATEMENT
All authors of this article declare they have no conflicts of
interest
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thank VNU University of Economics and Business,
Hanoi for financing the Research Project number
KT.21.04. This paper has been extracted from this
research.
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