On August 20, 2026, the Vietnam Academy of Forest Sciences (VAFS) and the International Center for Bamboo and Rattan (ICBR) held an online signing ceremony to renew their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) via the Zoom platform. This renewal follows the first MOU signed by the two sides in Hanoi in September 2019, which laid the official foundation for cooperation between the two research institutions.
Attending and speaking at the ceremony, on the ICBR side were Mr. Qin Daochun, Director General, and Ms. Li Xiaohua, Deputy Director General, together with leaders of ICBR’s departments, divisions, and affiliated research institutes. On the VAFS side were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phi Hong Hai, Director of the Academy, and Dr. Tran Lam Dong, Deputy Director of the Academy, along with representatives of the leadership of the Academy’s affiliated units.
In his welcome remarks, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phi Hong Hai emphasized that bamboo and rattan are important non-timber forest resources of great economic, social, and environmental value to both countries, closely tied to the livelihoods of local people, particularly in mountainous and rural areas, while also contributing to poverty reduction, forest protection, and climate change response. On the ICBR side, Mr. Qin Daochun reviewed five years of cooperation since 2019, including a visit by a VAFS delegation to ICBR in late 2019, a field survey conducted by ICBR experts in Vietnam in 2024 under the “Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastics” initiative, and a visit to ICBR by a VAFS delegation led by Mr. Vo Dai Hai in 2025.
The renewed Memorandum will serve as the basis for both sides to carry out specific collaborative activities in scientific research, the exchange of experts and staff, human resource training, technology transfer, genetic resource sharing, cultivation techniques, processing, and the development of a sustainable bamboo and rattan value chain, including advancing the “Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastics” initiative in Vietnam. The event is expected to further deepen forestry science and technology cooperation between Vietnam and China in the years ahead.
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