The five-day Vietnam Rice Festival will be the first agricultural show to combine international rice trading and investment opportunities with traditional Mekong Delta folk art, provincial Vice Chairman Trinh Quang Hung said on Tuesday.

Rice companies and other agricultural concerns from Japan, Korea, China and Australia will be there along with a host of Vietnamese businesses and international traders.

Diplomats and representatives of international food agencies will also be present at the event, which has the central government’s full support.

Hau Giang, which was separated from Can Tho Province in 2005, produces a million tons of rice annually.

While a few other provinces might grow more, vice chairman Hung sees Hau Giang as a hub of the rice trade and wants to raise its profile in this regard.

Among the specific plans, Hau Giang wants to establish an organized system of warehouses for storing rice and is looking for investors to build the infrastructure, Hung said.

Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, he noted.

As things stand, millers must travel all over the country to get rice to fill their orders. An efficient centralized system would make it simpler and cheaper for them to obtain rice, he said.