These are the major problems faced by the local agricultural sector at the moment, he told the seminar organised last week by the Business Club for Vietnamese Agricultural Product Branding of the Saigon Times Club.

Good Agricultural Practices are guidelines established to ensure a clean and safe working environment for all employees while eliminating the potential for contamination of food products,

Therefore, GAP is a key factor for the agricultural sector to grow, Vong said local products needed GAP certification as proof of safety and hygiene so that foreign importers could place confidence in them.

Some seafood shipments to Japan and the European Union have been found to contain residues of banned chemicals and substances and this has had a negative impact on the industry as a whole.

To solve this problem, Vong and Joseph Ekman, an extension horticultural quality assurance specialist of Gosford, are supporting the' agriculture ministry to establish a GAP system.

Ekman said Vietnam should build a GAP system called VietGap for itself based on Asean's GAP.

As a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Vietnam faces less trade barriers but more non-trade ones, including the strict requirement for product hygiene and safety, he said.

He stressed VietGap would be an effective tool to fend local farmers off such barriers.