As the old criteria overlooked a wide range of products specified in Decision No.490, the new one has amended the shortcomings by expanding its scope, an official said. — Viet Nam News
HANOI: The government has introduced new criteria for rating products in the One Commune One Product (OCOP) Programme.
Dao Duc Huan, head of the OCOP Management Department and the Central Coordination Office for New-style Rural Development (CCO), said it was laid down to replace the “old” rating system issued in 2019, which began to show cracks after four years of being in place.
As the old criteria overlooked a wide range of products specified in Decision No.490, the new one has amended the shortcomings by expanding its scope.
It has also altered the old scoring systems by assigning a maximum score of 40 points to the “community strength” category, 25 points to “marketing capabilities” and 35 points to “product quality”.
Huan said the new criteria encourage the involvement of women and ethnic minorities in the production of OCOPs by giving extra points to affirmative actions. It has also encouraged the use of local materials and labour by adding around one to five points to localisation efforts.
A fair amount of paperwork involved in the application process has been cut. Applicants for OCOP ratings now just have to submit a self-assessment report to the panel of judges to have their products evaluated.
As ratings have become lenient in some localities recently, the government has righted the wrong by taking charge of evaluating five-star OCOPs. It devolved four-star products to provincial authorities and three-star ones to municipalities.
CCO deputy chief Phuong Dinh Anh said he believes that the delegation of authority would reduce the workloads of province-level panels and allow district-level authorities to play a more active role in supporting their local OCOPs.
“The decentralisation of authority will allow local authorities to support their local OCOPs more actively,” said Anh.
He also said 8,689 OCOPs had been scored by late 2022, with 65.5% of the products being labelled three-star, 33.6% four-star, 0.7% potential five-star and 0.2% five-star.
Vu Ba Phu, director of the Trade Promotion Agency in the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said his agency had been working since 2018 to help OCOPs carve out a niche in the global market.
Last year, the agency organised scores of business-matching events across the country to link OCOP producers with traders and exporters. It also engaged in many information-sharing activities to keep them well-informed about foreign standards.
Training courses have been implemented to help the producers get used to eCommerce platforms, which, he believes will hold the key to their transborder commercial success.
On the downside, the director underlined three obstacles producers face while trying to develop trade overseas. — Viet Nam News/ANN
