Opportunity for the largest cinnamon growing area in the country

From the two provinces with the largest and second largest cinnamon areas in the country, after the merger, Lao Cai province (new) became the "super" cinnamon region of Vietnam, opening up a golden opportunity for the cinnamon industry to break through.

In recent years, the two former provinces of Yen Bai and Lao Cai have considered cinnamon as a key crop to have strategic orientations, synchronize development policies towards sustainability, and link value chains.

Lao Cai province has over 143,000 hectares of cinnamon, accounting for 75% of the country's cinnamon area.

In the period of 2021 - 2025, Yen Bai has shifted from supporting seedlings to develop concentrated and specialized cinnamon growing areas to supporting the development of organic cinnamon production linked to the value chain.

Support includes: 100% of the cost of assessing and determining raw material areas, cooperation mechanisms between processing facilities, cinnamon growers and local authorities, completing certification registration dossiers; costs of assessing and granting organic certification; costs of designing samples and purchasing stamps, labels, and product packaging; certifying OCOP products and participating in domestic and foreign trade promotion activities... total support funding does not exceed 2 billion VND/project.

The old Yen Bai province also selected over 50 trees that met the standards, implementing a model of building a land fund to plant superior seedlings selected from nurseries with seeds taken from superior trees to preserve and develop superior genetic resources.

The old Lao Cai province also issued Resolution No. 10 on the provincial agricultural commodity development strategy to 2030, with a vision to 2050, setting specific targets on the area and production value of cinnamon trees to 2025, 2030 and 2050.

A series of policies from the Central and the province have been issued and applied to promote the sustainable development of cinnamon material areas such as: supporting cinnamon planting after investment of 10 million VND/ha; supporting the construction of a cinnamon value chain; supporting organic certification; supporting the construction of processing and preliminary processing facilities for agricultural and forestry products and piloting a mechanism to support site clearance for the implementation of investment projects on processing agricultural, forestry and fishery products to attract and call for investment...

Sharing the same orientation, goals and destinations, the two provinces in the top of the country in the cinnamon industry have "coincidentally" created a huge raw material area for the new Lao Cai province after the merger. To date, the province has over 143,000 hectares of cinnamon, accounting for 75% of the country's cinnamon area, bringing in a value of about 2,500 billion VND per year. Many concentrated cinnamon growing areas have been formed and developed in a sustainable direction with 23,700 hectares of cinnamon certified organic.

In addition, creating favorable conditions and encouraging businesses to invest in production, deep processing, and refined processing has attracted 41 large-scale enterprises and cooperatives along with hundreds of small-scale household establishments to participate in preliminary processing and product processing. From there, not only hundreds of thousands of tons of cinnamon (branches, leaves, bark) are consumed locally for the people but also a variety of products are created, meeting the requirements of domestic and export markets, increasing value.

Cinnamon products are currently exported to 39 countries and territories around the world, from easy-going to demanding markets. With these proud figures and lessons learned from decades of cinnamon cultivation, Lao Cai province will certainly have a superior competitive advantage in terms of scale and output, and is confident of becoming the leading cinnamon production and processing center in the country.

The large scale and strong development potential of the unified cinnamon region together with the international border gate will be a "magnet" attracting domestic and foreign investors, from modern processing factories, warehouse systems, logistics, agricultural processing industrial parks, etc.

This is also a favorable condition for our province to organize the production of refined cinnamon essential oil into essential oils with high usage value instead of just exporting crude essential oil as before. At the same time, it will also create a strong and unified cinnamon brand for the region.

Instead of two separate brands, a common brand will have greater influence, easily access demanding markets and improve competitiveness. Trade promotion and product promotion activities will also be organized on a larger scale and more professionally.

In addition, authorities at all levels and specialized sectors will have a more comprehensive view of the potential of both regions, thereby having a focused orientation, building effective and synchronous support policies, removing difficulties, bringing Lao Cai cinnamon further, accessing large, high-value consumer markets such as the US, Japan and Nordic countries...

Obviously, an unprecedented golden opportunity is opening up for the cinnamon industry. The Party Committee, the communal government and the people in the cinnamon region are also looking forward to and expecting the general strategic directions of the province to promote the cinnamon industry to develop to its full potential.

Mr. Do Cao Quyen, Chairman of the People's Committee of Mo Vang Commune, shared: "Mo Vang Commune is currently one of the key raw material areas with 7,335 hectares, cinnamon has high essential oil content and good quality."

The commune hopes that the province and related departments and branches will soon direct the issuance of a plan for concentrated cinnamon material areas associated with each climate and soil sub-region. In particular, the construction of a digital map of cinnamon trees associated with real time to serve the planning work; cinnamon forest management, gene conservation; development orientation. The digital map of cinnamon trees will also be a marketing product for businesses to feel secure about the source and quality of local cinnamon.

"At the same time, there is support for the formation of cooperatives, cooperative groups, and groups of households producing according to the production - processing - consumption chain; training on techniques for planting, caring for, and processing cinnamon in an organic and modern direction for people; there are incentive mechanisms for businesses and cooperatives investing in preliminary processing, processing essential oils, and organic cinnamon products, especially on-site; attention is paid to supporting investment in infrastructure serving the value chain, from transportation routes, preliminary processing systems, storage warehouses, to agricultural wholesale markets..." - Mr. Quyen added.

We believe that in the near future, the Lao Cai cinnamon industry will have solid steps, maximizing the advantages of raw material areas, building concentrated, modern, sustainable production areas, increasing people's income, and making an important contribution to the socio-economic development of the province.

Source: https://baolaocai.vn/co-hoi-cho-vung-que-lon-nhat-ca-nuoc-post648339.html