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Falling world prices hit VN’s increasing pepper exports
Viet Nam’s pepper exports in the first seven months of this year increased in volume but declined in value, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).
The country gained a year-on-year increase of 43 per cent in pepper export volume to reach 83,000 tonnes of pepper in the first seven months, but the world pepper price decline caused a 4.4 per cent decrease in export value compared with the same period of last year to stand at US$194 million.
Viet Nam harvested 95,000 tonnes of pepper in this year’s crop, an increase of 4.4 per cent over last year.
Do Ha Nam, chairman of the Viet Nam Pepper Association (VPA), said the farmers continued selling pepper when the export price fell, because the price remained high enough to still make a profit.
Pepper companies here have semi-processed products, so they can export more cheaply than other countries. Other countries often buy Vietnamese semi-processed farmed products and do the final processing themselves and put their trademarks on them to sell for a higher price.
In the seven months, Viet Nam already sold 80 per cent of the total pepper harvested, so it cannot fulfil the rest of its export contracts until September due to a pepper shortage.
Pepper industry insiders predict the pepper price would increase sharply by the end of this year due to a shortage of pepper supply. The VPA expected the export price for pepper would rise from the current $4,300 to $5,000 per tonne in the near future.
Vietnamese pepper was exported to 73 countries and territories at an annual average volume of 70,600 tonnes, accounting for 31.2 per cent of the world pepper market, Nam said.
The country expected to export 100,000 tonnes of pepper this year, an increase of 10,000 tonnes over the volume of last year.
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