Vietnamese with an agriculture visa will certainly be welcome to farms and regional communities across Australia, Chief Executive Tony Mahar of the Australian National Farmers' Federation (NFF) has said.

At a factory in Young, Australia (Source: VNA)

His statement came after Australia signed with Vietnam the first bilateral Memorandum of Understanding under its Agriculture Visa Programme on March 28.

Mahar said the programme is crucial to helping Australia's agriculture sector address workforce shortages for the sector valued at 100 billion AUD (70 billion USD) by 2030.

A large amount of Australian grain, beef and fruit has already been exported to Vietnam, he said, adding that more Vietnamese workers to Australian farms will foster this relationship.

Meanwhile, Australian Minister for Agriculture David Littleproud said the local agricultural industry is short of about 20,000 workers. The visa programme will accept skilled, semi-skilled and low-skilled foreign workers in occupations such as farming, dairy farming, wool, grain, fisheries and forestry.

The minister emphasised that it marks the biggest change in the labour structure, not only accepting unskilled workers but also skilled and semi-skilled ones and opening up opportunities for permanent settlement in Australia for workers. In the first phase, the programme will focus on occupations that require low skill.

Source: VNA