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80% of cashew workshops shut down because of a lack of materials
Material deficiencies and slow exports have pushed cashew nut exporters in Binh Phuoc, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Long An provinces against the wall.
Nguyen Van Lang, a staff of the Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacas), said that enterprises are seriously lacking raw materials. The enterprises need some 300,000 tons of raw materials from now until the next harvest in March 2009. Meanwhile, the inventory volume is less than 100,000 tons.
In fact, Vietnamese cashew enterprises still have to import raw materials, since domestic sources cannot provide enough materials for the processing workshops. However, they do not dare to import materials in large quantities so far, as the raw material import prices from Indonesia, Mozambique and Tanzania are overly high, while the export prices of finished products remain low.
Lang said that everything is getting more expensive, including the input material prices, paying for workers, and bank interest rates, all of which have pushed the production costs up. Meanwhile, Electricity of Vietnam is also attempting to raise the electricity prices.
The export markets have become gloomy as consumers in the world have been trying to tighten their purse strings in the context of crisis. A lot of importers have broken contracts, while others have been slow in making payments.
However, cashew nut exporters still maintain high hopes that the export markets will improve by the end of the year, when the demand rises for Christmas and New Years. The inventory volumes in the US, Netherlands, UK, Australia and China are reportedly very low as the local importers and packers are facing difficulties in capital arrangement.
VNN
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