Need to remove obstacles for 4-star OCOP products

​(News Portal – Dong Nai) - 2023 is the first year the province implements a new set of OCOP (One Commune One Product) evaluation criteria. In particular, allowing the district-level People's Committees to evaluate and certify 3-star OCOP products. Thanks to that, Dong Nai achieved many remarkable results when 74 more OCOP products of 53 entities were evaluated and verified, an increase of 19 new products compared to 2022.

OCOP products of the province participate in the trade promotion program in Bien Hoa City 

However, the standards and requirements for 4-star OCOP products assessed and reviewed by the Provincial Appraisal Council are becoming more demanding and stricter than before. Among them, some evaluation criteria still have many problems and issues that need to be resolved.

Increase the number of 3 stars OCOP products
In 2023, 11/11 localities in the province have organized the evaluation of 74 OCOP products of 53 subjects participating in the implementation of the OCOP program for the first time. As a result of district level assessment, there are 67 products achieving 3-star OCOP and 4 products with 4-star potential submitted to the provincial council to organize the assessment.

Accumulated up to now, there are 221 OCOP products of 120 entities, 22 cooperatives, 39 enterprises, 52 establishments and 7 cooperative groups. Of these, there are 159 3-star OCOP products, 45 4-star OCOP products, and 17 products proposed to be rated 4 stars by the Provincial Council, including both new products and re-certified products.

According to the assessment of Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Van Thang, allowing the recognition of 3-star OCOP products to the district and city levels has created convenience and initiative for localities, so although in 2023 the province implemented a new set of criteria with more demanding and stricter requirements, the whole province still had an increase of 19 new OCOP products compared to 2022. This result is thanks to the effective implementation of departments, divisions and localities.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thang added: "Currently, Dong Nai has many products with OCOP stars of very good quality, the designs of some products are quite eye-catching and luxurious, suitable to be used as gifts. The program has attracted the participation and promoted the role of rural women, agricultural cooperatives, and local small and medium enterprises." 

OCOP products of the province participate in the trade promotion program in Bien Hoa City 

​Proactively create 4-star OCOP products

Although the OCOP program in 2023 attracted many participants with a much higher number of certified OCOP products than in 2022. However, for the entire year, the province only had 4 potential 4-star products submitted to the council for certification. As a result, only 2 products received 4-star OCOP certification, much lower in quantity than every year.

According to local feedback, difficulties and obstacles in reviewing documents to participate in the assessment and classification of OCOP products are mainly due to the fact that this is the first year of decentralization of assessment, classification and issuance of product certificates at the district level. As a result, many localities are still confused in the evaluation and ranking of OCOP products. This is also the reason why some localities are behind schedule in evaluating OCOP products. In particular, the new set of criteria and process for evaluating and classifying OCOP products has adjusted and supplemented a number of contents, especially 4-star OCOP products need to meet 10 demanding criteria, including environment, intellectual property, Vietnam's advanced quality certification such as VietGAP/GlobalGAP/organic/HACCP/ISO 22000,..., all of which are difficult criteria and take a lot of time to comply.

A representative of Golden Health Cordyceps Co., Ltd. (Long Thanh district) shared that the business is currently stuck with the common criteria of having a registered brand for intellectual property protection. The enterprise has submitted an application to register for intellectual property rights protection, but according to regulations, it takes at least 2 years to complete the procedure. This is time consuming, so it is recommended that the relevant authorities should shorten the time to issue this certificate to businesses.

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Vo Van Phi emphasized that with few OCOP products achieving 4-star certification this year, the authorities need to learn from experience in planning to deploy tasks in the following years. In particular, applications for registration of intellectual property rights often take 2-3 years to be granted. In addition, the authorities need to contact to speed up the issuance of certification. On the OCOP side, the subject must also be proactive in early implementation of criteria that require a long time to achieve results. In the plan to implement tasks in the following years, participating in the appraisal and review council for OCOP products at the provincial level also requires the participation of representatives of local leaders to clearly understand the situation, what is still problematic, and what hasn't been able to be implemented well right from the local level. Departments and sectors need to actively support and pay attention to propaganda, training, and support in each field; it is necessary to have an information channel so that subjects can go to look for information and be guided on the implementation process for each product criterion so that subjects can proactively implement the criteria in the production process; create a mechanism most convenient for subjects to proactively learn and deploy at the grassroots level.... ​​