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Tra fish still famished
The State Bank of Vietnam has ordered state-owned Agribank to pump VND1tril into the Cuu Long River Delta to rescue tra farming ponds. However, the tra fish here are still going hungry.
Saving tra fish proves to be one of the top priority tasks now for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and relevant ministries.
On June 1, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai had an online working session with leaders of the eight Cuu Long River Delta provinces, discussing ways to rescue tra fish and the tra processing industry. After the working session, the State Bank of Vietnam ratified an urgent loan of VND1tril for the Cuu Long River Delta to rescue fish.
On June 8, MARD Minister Cao Duc Phat chaired another online working session with the eight provinces in the Cuu Long River Delta to discuss tra fish problems, again.
Capital coming, but enterprises don’t want loans
Statistics show that banks have disbursed less than VND100bil over the last one week.
Ngo Phuoc Hau, Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers, said that many tra processing enterprises do not want to borrow money from the VND1tril loan programme because of the high interest rate.
“They won’t borrow money as they know for sure that they will suffer losses if they buy fish for storage as requested by the government,” Hau said.
Leaders of the Cuu Long River Delta provinces all said at the working session that the 18% interest rate at which banks lend capital to enterprises proves to be unaffordable.
Tran Thi Thu Nga, Deputy Director of Ben Tre Seafood Department, said that the high interest rate does not encourage seafood processing workshops to buy fish from farmers. As a result, fish remain unsold, while farmers do not have money to buy food for fish anymore.
Unable to borrow money, processing companies keep production at moderate level, while farmers are like cats on hot bricks as the volume of oversized fish (over 1kg) has gotten bigger. A lot of farmers in Hau Giang and Can Tho have been faced with famished fish for a few weeks.
Saving tra fish requires urgent measures
Not only enterprises, tra farmers also complain about the complicated procedures to access bank loans.
At the working session, a group of 100 tra farmers said that they signed contracts with the Bank of Investment and Development (BIDV) to borrow VND40bil. However, the bank has announced it will stop disbursement after it disburses VND20bil. Now the farmers cannot borrow money from the VND1tril loan programme from Agribank, because their mortgaged assets are being kept at BIDV. In order to get the loans, they have to get back their mortgaged assets from BIDV and follow necessary procedures with Agribank.
“While we are busy following procedures, our fish are dying of starvation,” the farmers said, adding that they have not given food to fish for the last 15 days.
Hau from VASEP said that VASEP and several big processing companies have agreed to buy oversized fish at VND14,000/kg, at which price farmers would incur the loss of over VND1,000/kg. The problem now is, when banks will disburse the money so that processing companies can push up fish purchases?
Meanwhile, Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Dong Tien affirmed that capital is profuse, and that the State Bank has asked other commercial banks to join forces to lend to tra farmers.
VNN
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