Tra Vinh province has a total population of more than 1 million people, including 3 ethnic groups of Kinh, Khmer, and Chinese. The Khmer ethnic people account for about 32% of the population.

Located in the southwestern region of Vietnam, Tra Vinh province has great advantages in agriculture, with many key products such as rice, seafood, specialty fruits and fine-art handicraft products from traditional handicraft villages.

Implementing the National Target Program for socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas in the period 2021 - 2030, from now to 2025, Tra Vinh province will implement 10 projects with a total budget of about 1,465 billion VND to improve living standards for ethnic minorities.

To increase people's income, especially people in ethnic minority and mountainous areas, Tra Vinh province has focused on developing e-commerce.

The province has launched its e-commerce platforms at travinhtrade.com.vn. The site introduces more than 150 businesses and more than 750 products of all kinds, including hundreds of OCOP products as well as typical agricultural products and 300 other products.

Tra Vinh is working on connecting its trading floor with those of other provinces, including 18 provinces in the eastern and western regions such as Kien Giang, An Giang, Tay Ninh, Quang Binh, Thua Thien Hue... to support businesses in connecting supply and demand and finding markets.

In addition to connecting supply and demand, Tra Vinh also assists local businesses to participate in e-commerce platforms such as Lazada, Tiki, TikTokshop... Currently, the province is promoting the consumption of 3-4 star OCOP products on these platforms.

At the same time, the province is supporting 5-star OCOP products to join international e-commerce platforms. Many programs have been designed to provide local firms with knowledge on how to apply e-commerce in production and business.

Most of enterprises in Tra Vinh are medium, small and micro enterprises and the application of information technology by some enterprises is still very low.

Although the local authorities have focused on organizing e-commerce training courses for local firms, many local businesses are not familiar with it and do not pay much attention to this.

Most people in ethnic minority and mountainous areas in Tra Vinh specialize in agricultural production. Therefore, it is necessary to support them to link with e-commerce platforms to introduce their products on e-commerce platforms, thereby contributing to helping localities promote the digital economy in agriculture and rural areas.

These moves will contribute to promoting the socio-economic development of ethnic minority areas in Tra Vinh province, so that by 2025, the average income of ethnic minorities will reach 80 million VND/person/year, and the rate of poor households will decrease by 3 - 4%/year.

Hien Linh