Viet Nam has become the 63rd member of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced on Jan. 23.

The membership was made in recognition of the country's efforts in building a system to protect varieties of plants, contributing to accelerating research on creating and developing plant varieties.

Those efforts helped effectively implement protection of varieties of plants through cooperation with UPOV members.

On this occasion, the ministry granted certificates of protection of new plant varieties to the Hai Phong Hi-tech Agriculture Joint-stock Company, the Bio-agriculture Institute, the Monsanto Company and the Syngenta Viet Nam Co. Ltd. for their new rice and corn varieties.