Over the past 30 years, Vietnam has become one of the main success stories of economic development. Thanks to market-oriented economic reforms and inflows of FDI, Vietnam reached middle-income status in 2009 and medium-term growth projections remain optimistic. However, to sustain its rapid development, the country will need to upgrade its position in global value chains, from just being a source of cheap labor to higher value-added activities.

The food processing sector contributes significantly to the country’s economy, accounting for nearly 20% of manufacturing output. Thanks to favorable geograpy and climate, Vietnam has comparative advantages in the agricultural sector with a large variety of food products. Annual exports of food products amount to about 40 billion USD, with significant shares for seafood, vegetables, rice, cashew nuts, and coffee. However, the exports mainly consist of low value-added products, with over 60% of total export classified as raw materials. To upgrade the sector requires both public and private investment in processing technology, branding and marketing, packaging, traceability, and management. One of the critical stages in the upgrading path is to improve the skill level of the sector’s workforce. This calls for close interaction between education institutes and the industry.

Copenhagen Business School of Denmark, Nha Trang University, and Nguyen Tat Thanh University of Vietnam will organize a seminar on “Future Labor Skill for the Vietnamese Food Processing Sector” on 19^th July 2022 to discuss the opportunities and challenges for Vietnam’s food processing industry in upgrading its position in the global value chain. The focus will be on the skill requirements for upgrading, including potential collaborations between education institutes and food processing companies for vocational training and skill development. The participants are experts from colleges, universities, and food processing companies in Vietnam. Scientists from the three universities will briefly present research results on upgrading paths for Vietnam’s food processing industry, based on a joint two- year research project with funding from the Danish government (DANIDA-Vietskill project). The participants will discuss the development policy for the food processing sector and evaluate collaboration models between schools and enterprises for training and skill development.