The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and Tesco Lotus have continued their cooperation in buying 9,000 tons of rice from agricultural cooperatives in four northeastern provinces. More than 5,700 tons of fragrant jasmine rice were previously bought by the ministry. The ministry plans to form 6,000 groups of large agricultural land plots this year to reduce the costs of production. Produce from them will be sold to the business sector directly. More than 1,600 companies are expected to participate in the project this year.