The Vietnam Cooperative Alliance (VCA) created jobs for 7,800 people over the last three years, said Nguyen Xuan Hien, VCA Vice President, at a meeting to review the organisation’s operations, in Hanoi on December 24.

As many as 2,349 new cooperatives were established, including 700 engaging in agriculture and 350 operating in industrial and household economic areas.

The VCA provided loans worth more than VND37 billion to its members. Cooperatives and their workers were given soft loans worth more than VND545 billion from credit programmes in localities.

However, during the period, 1,668 cooperatives were dissolved, most of them working in offshore fishing.