|
Firms selling milk at unreasonably high prices: Consumer watchdog
Dairy companies are taking a bulk of their profits by selling their products at higher prices than in neighboring countries, the Vietnam Standards and Consumers’ Association (Vinastas) said.
Ho Tat Thang, Vinastas vice chairman, said at a Monday conference in Hanoi that it was ridiculous that milk product prices in Vietnam were 1.5 times higher than Malaysia’s and Thailand.
One kilogram of imported powdered milk is priced at VND70,000 (US$4), but domestic dairy companies sell a 900-gram powdered milk can at VND120,000-150,000, Thang said.
Foreign firms sell at even higher prices ranging from VND350,000 ($19.70) to VND400,000 ($22.50), he added.
Dairy prices in Vietnam, Canada and the US are among the highest in the world, Raf Somers, chief technical advisor for the Vietnam Belgium Dairy Project, said at another meeting in Hanoi last week.
Retail prices in Vietnam are about $1.40 per liter against $1.10 in China and just $0.50 in India, Somers said.
He added dairy companies in the country earned returns of 22-86 percent on powdered milk and 48 percent on liquid milk.
It costs around VND100,000 ($5.60) to produce a 900g can of powdered milk in foreign countries but Vietnam’s dairy companies push the expenses up by VND86,000 and the retail price of a can goes up to VND215,000 after adding taxes and distribution costs, Somers said at the meeting. It was not explained why the production expenses were higher.
Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Co., or Vinamilk, Vietnam’s second-biggest listed company by market value, said net incomes rose 68 percent year on year in the first quarter to VND496 billion ($28 million).
First-quarter sales reached VND2.1 trillion ($118 million) a 15 percent increase year-on-year. Domestic sales were up 18 percent, shareholders heard at the company’s annual general meeting this week in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vinamilk has a 37 percent share of Vietnam’s dairy product market, Chairwoman and Chief Executive Mai Kieu Lien said, citing an unidentified market research firm.
Vinastas Vice Chairman Thang said foreign firms like Dutch Lady, which has a 24 percent share of the dairy market, Mead Johnson, Abbott and Nestle were also enjoying hefty profit margins.
Responding to a question on higher prices for milk products in Vietnam compared to other countries in the region like Malaysia, Tran Quoc Huan, Dutch Lady Vietnam’s marketing manager, said at the conference that Malaysia is a developed market, so dairy retailers are offered big discount rates.
Huan also said dairy supply from Vietnamese farmers meets only 25-30 percent of Dutch Lady’s liquid milk demand, so the company has to import powdered milk.
Liquid milk bought from Vietnam’s farmers is the most expensive in the world, he said.
thanhnien, vietnamplus
|
