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Pepper growers control exports
The Viet Nam Pepper Association has recommended its members not to continuously export produce, in a move to avoid a price fallout in the world market.
The association said that domestic pepper exporters should cut their shipments, adding that only contracts with export prices reaching at least US$2,800 per tonne should be signed.
Despite an increase of VND4-6 million per tonne in the early months of this year, exported pepper prices were still roughly 30 per cent lower than the same period last year.
The association said that the world’s pepper demand currently exceeded its supply. Viet Nam, the world’s leading pepper exporter, was able to export only about 40,000 tonnes from now to the end of the year.
The world’s demand for pepper had not been sharply affected by the global economic recession. Prices of exported pepper, therefore, would increase again in the next few months, said the association.
Chairman of the association Do Ha Nam said that despite a price drop by roughly 30 per cent over the same period last year, farmers in the first six months of the year still raised pepper sales, and they could still make profits of nearly 50 per cent thanks to high yields.
Domestic pepper exporters had also rampantly shipped produce in the first half of the year, as they were concerned that prices would continue sliding due to the ongoing impacts of the global recession.
The General Statistics Office reported that the country in the first half of the year exported 66,000 tonnes of pepper, up more than 39 per cent over the same period last year. However, the industry had earned only $153 million from pepper exports, down 8.5 per cent year-on-year.
To minimise the volatility of the world market, industry insiders said that in the long run, it would be necessary to build major storage facilities to better keep the pepper, in case the price kept falling in the world market.
Research and investment on pepper processing technology would also be needed to gradually build up the Vietnamese pepper trademark in the global market, the source said.
Nam said that Vietnamese pepper accounted for 31.2 per cent of the world pepper market, and was exported to 73 countries and territories, with an annual average volume of 70,600 tonnes since 2001.
The country’s pepper yield in the 2008-09 crop was 95,000 tonnes, a 4,000 tonne increase over the previous crop. The industry expected to export more than 100,000 tonnes this year, roughly 10,000 tonnes more than last year.
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