Some 500 Japanese hi-tech agricultural products were exhibited at an expo in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday, as seven leading businesses from Japan tried to find new customers in a bid to expand into Vietnam.

The event was organized by the GK-Organic Corporation, a Vietnam-Japan joint venture, with the participation of such firms as Hyponex, Hanagokoro, Menedael, Toyo Chuu, Watanabe Pipe, Hiep Phat and Iseki.

These firms are manufacturers of clean soils, high-quality seeds, smart fertilizers, hi-tech agro-machinery, net houses and other agriculture equipment, enabling them to supply all of the necessary materials for agricultural production in Vietnam.

Thousands of visitors, both Vietnamese farmers and agribusinesses, were thus intrigued by the products and machines displayed at the event.

“They have as many as 1,500 different types of fertilizers, which illustrates their intensive research into land and weather conditions for each kind of plant,” Nguyen Van Toan, a farmer from the southern province of Long An, said.

In the meantime, Nguyen Van Thanh, chairman of An Phu APP, a major agro-firm in the Central Highlands city of Da Lat, took advantage of the event to study Japanese-made organic and biological fertilizers.

“These Japanese products create more options for us in producing fresh and clean vegetables, and we are pondering over using them in our production,” he told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

An Phu App is cooperating with some Japanese partners to export high-quality green produce to such strict markets as the EU, the U.S., Japan and Taiwan.

Eying Vietnam

The hi-tech agriculture expo was expected to help the seven Japanese businesses find new customers in Vietnam, as they have all embarked on an overseas expansion journey given the stagnant market at home.

The aging population and the government’s policy to weaken the yen has prompted Japanese firms to seek overseas markets for export and investment, Kozuka Junichi, chairman of Hanagokoro, said at a conference held on the sidelines of the expo.

As a clean soil supplier, Hanagokoro sees Vietnam as a potential market since the country shares many weather and land conditions with Japan, Junichi said.

Hyponex chairman Murakami Yasutoyo also said choosing Vietnam as the destination for the company’s Southeast Asian expansion plan is an important move of the fertilizer maker.

Hyponex had sent its experts to collect soil samples in Vietnam to find out the most appropriate smart fertilizer to be used in the country before officially selling its products, Yasutoyo told Tuoi Tre.

The Japanese fertilizer maker is also seeking a suitable location to build a manufacturing plant in the Southeast Asian country, in order to be able to cut product prices to support consumers, the chairman added.

In the meantime, Toyo Chuu chairman Nakashima Yoshiyuki said the company had carefully studied the Vietnamese market before sending its biological insecticide products there.

Besides the products widely available in Japan, Toyo Chuu even created four brand new pesticides and weed killers exclusively for Vietnam, he said.

Many of the Japanese products on display at the expo are now being evaluated by relevant Vietnamese agencies before they can be allowed to be sold in Vietnam, Ngo Chanh, chairman of GK-Organic Corporation, noted.

They are expected to be available in Vietnam around the 2016 Vietnamese Lunar New Year, which falls in early February, Chanh added.

But it may take local farmers some time before they can start using these Japanese products, according to the chairman.

“They should consider such factors as product prices, and need to test the effectiveness of the products,” he explained.

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