Graduating with an excellent diploma from the Hanoi University of Agriculture in late 2017, Nong Kim Ngoc from Na Dinh hamlet of Ngoc Chan commune, Yen Binh district, decided to begin his career right in his hometown.
The locality was still poor, where locals mainly earned their living through small-scale farming and had not connected with one another in spite of land and manpower potential, according to Ngoc. Therefore, he persuaded them to transfer to him their right to use tens of hectares of farmland, on which he invested in combined agro-forestry production with a focus on citrus tree and wood farming.
Armed with the determination to make a fortune, Ngoc weathered numerous difficulties in the initial years and now owns 30ha of farmland, including 15ha of orange, 5ha of grapefruit, 2ha of guava, and 8ha of weeping paperbark and tung tree, creating stable jobs for eight workers with a monthly per capita income of over 4.5 million VND (195 USD). Notably, in 2019, he entered the final round of the innovation and startup competition for rural youth held by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (HCYU) Central Committee.
The HCYU Committee and the branch of the Vietnam Youth Federation (VYF) in Yen Bai are among the agencies taking the lead in realising the Government and the provincial administration’s decisions and plans on supporting the national innovation and startup ecosystem and assisting students to start their businesses until 2025. The provincial HCYU Committee’s Standing Board also proposed the provincial People’s Committee issue a plan on supporting and developing Yen Bai youth’s startup movement in the 2019-2020 period.
Secretary of the provincial HCYU Committee Doan Thi Thanh Tam said since 2016, the committee has coordinated with the Dien dan Doanh nghiep (Business Forum) newspaper of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the VYF’s Support Centre for Youth’s Startup, and the young entrepreneurs’ association of the province to organise five forums and two competitions on innovation and startup for local youth. The events aimed to inspire young people’s dynamism, creativity and entrepreneurship.
So far, many startup projects by young people have become operational and proved fruitful such as the one for ethnic minority youth in Khuon Bo hamlet of Hong Ca commune, Tran Yen district, or the Lam Thuong youth cooperative in Luc Yen district.
2020 is the fourth year for implementing the Prime Minister’s Decision 939 and the plan on assisting women to start their businesses in the 2017-2025 period in Yen Bai. To inspire local women’s entrepreneurship, the provincial Women’s Union has invited experienced lecturers from central agencies and leaders of departments and sectors to provide training and talk about entrepreneurship.
In the past, Hoang Thi Ha in Luu 2 Village of Hat Luu commune, Tram Tau district, relied on only small-scale farming to make ends meet in her family. In August 2019, she decided to join others to set up a cooperative group named Hoa Ban Trang that specialises in community-based tourism. After five months of operating, the group welcomed over 500 tourists.
President of the Yen Bai Women’s Union Vu Thi Hien Hanh affirmed that after more than three years of carrying out the plan on supporting local women to start businesses, especially since the 2019 women’s startup competition, many women have come to business ideas and opened startups. In 2019, the union helped with the establishment of five cooperatives, five businesses and 144 cooperative groups owned by women. There were 200 women-run economic models, each with a revenue of at least 200 million VND.
As of December 9, 232 businesses, 90 cooperatives and 2,304 cooperative groups had been set up in the province. This will be an important driving force for Yen Bai to make firm steps forward in the national industrialisation and modernisation.
Van Tuan
