Working together, the Dutch way

Vietnam and the Netherlands have more in common than it may seem. Both are trading nations shaped by great river deltas, both live with water, and both are major exporters of food. The two countries have worked together on water management since a strategic partnership in 2010, and the Mekong Delta Plan, developed jointly and approved in 2013, helped shape the delta's regional master plan adopted in 2022. Today the Netherlands is Vietnam's largest trading partner in the European Union and the largest EU investor in the country.

Traders first, farmers too

In 2025 the Netherlands exported agricultural goods worth 137.5 billion euros, which is why it is often described as the world's second-largest agricultural exporter after the United States. That figure deserves a little explanation, because the explanation is itself a lesson. Some 49 billion euros of it was re-exports: goods imported from elsewhere and traded on, in a trading tradition that goes back to the Dutch East India Company (VOC) of the seventeenth century. Much of the remaining 88 billion was made or processed in the Netherlands rather than grown there. Cocoa products, for example, were the second-largest export category at 12.4 billion euros, although not a single cocoa tree grows in the Dutch climate.

What Dutch farmers and growers produce themselves is far smaller than those headline numbers, but it is remarkable in quality and efficiency. Dairy, greenhouse vegetables, flowers, seed potatoes and plant breeding are known worldwide, built on close cooperation between farmers, universities such as Wageningen, government and business, and on a steady focus on producing more with less land, water and energy.

For Vietnam, a great producer of coffee, rice, fruit and seafood, both halves of the Dutch story are interesting. Good farming creates value. Processing, trading and knowledge often create even more.

Cooperatives: small producers, strong together

Several of the strongest Dutch food companies are owned by farmers themselves. FrieslandCampina, known in Vietnam for its Dutch Lady (Cô Gái Hà Lan) brand, is a cooperative owned by nearly 14,000 member dairy farmers. Rabobank began in the late nineteenth century as local credit cooperatives set up by farmers who found it hard to borrow. Working together gave small producers scale, quality control and bargaining power they could never have had alone, while ownership and profit stayed in their own hands. Competition keeps businesses sharp, but it is not the only source of strength. When businesses organise themselves around shared interests and mutual support, they build a resilience that competition alone rarely creates.

Vietnam knows this strength well. It has a long tradition of cooperation: craft villages where families share skills and customers, neighbours who help one another, and a cooperative movement that today counts more than 30,000 cooperatives and nearly seven million members, supported by a modernised Law on Cooperatives in force since July 2024. In the rush of fast growth, this hidden strength is sometimes overlooked. For producers of coffee, fruit, seafood or rice, a well-run cooperative or producers' association can share the costs of processing, certification and marketing, and help meet foreign buyers' growing demand for traceability.

The polder model

Much of the Netherlands lies below sea level, protected by dykes. For centuries neighbours had to agree on maintaining them, whatever else divided them, or everyone would flood. Many Dutch people see this as the root of the 'polder model': the habit of reaching decisions through patient consultation. Since 1950 the Social and Economic Council (SER) has brought employers, employees and independent experts together to advise the government. In the Wassenaar Agreement of 1982, employers and unions agreed on wage restraint in exchange for more jobs, a turning point for the Dutch economy.

Consultation takes time, and the Dutch are also known for speaking frankly. Yet decisions made together are usually carried out well, because people understand and support them. In a company, this can simply mean listening to the people who will do the work before a decision is final. It sits comfortably with the Asian value of harmony.

Traders for the long run

The Dutch have been traders for centuries, and some of their firms are remarkably old. The Van Eeghen family business in Amsterdam, founded in 1662, began by trading wool and linen, among other goods, and today supplies nutritional ingredients. Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, handled about 428 million tonnes of goods in 2025. The common thread is patience: invest in knowledge, infrastructure and relationships, and adapt what you trade as the world changes.

A shared strength

Perhaps the most useful Dutch lesson for Vietnam is not a technique but a reminder. Vietnamese businesses, communities and public institutions have long known how to cooperate as well as compete. Bringing that tradition consciously into modern business, through associations, cooperatives, shared facilities and long-term supplier relationships, may be one of the country's quiet advantages in the years ahead.