Can Tho (VNA) – Chairman of thePeople’s Committee of the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho Vo Thanh Thong on August13 had a working session with a Japanese delegation to discuss cooperationopportunities in agriculture and personnel training in this sector.

The Japanese delegation includes HitoshiKinouchi, a professor of Tokai University; Susumu Ishihara, an advisor ofJapanese language training; and Masayuki Abe, Director of the Human ResourceResearch Institute and Director of the Vietnam Agricultural Information Centre(VAIO).

According to Hitoshi, the Mekong Delta islike Japan in the past as it has small-scale agriculture with production mainlyconducted by households, thus hindering product processing and distribution tocompanies.

Japanese farming households have groupedinto cooperatives to tackle the problem and also sell agricultural productswith high prices, he said.

Hitoshi suggested Japan and Can Tho partnerwith each other in the farming sector, saying the most important issue is howto improve agricultural quality and technology.

For his part, Thong said Can Tho isinterested in partners and investors from Japan and wishes to cooperate withthe Japanese side in personnel training, especially the farming sector.

He called on Japan to provide technicalsupport for Can Tho and consider dispatching volunteers to Can Tho to take partin high-tech agriculture research programmes, while helping local farmers accessthe market and apply high and bio-technologies in the sector.

The official also highlighted Can Tho’s callfor investments into high-tech agriculture parks in Thoi Lai and Co Dodistricts.

Thong suggested the Japanese side assist thecity to build a website in Japanese language to facilitate the sharing ofmarket information between the two sides.

Can Tho is nowhome to 13 projects invested by Japanese firms with a total investment of 10.5million USD.-VNA