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Cashew exports fall nearly 10%
Viet Nam exported 134,000 tonnes of cashew nuts, earning an export turnover of US$621 million in the first nine months of the year, according to the Viet Nam Cashew Association.
The figure, the association said, was a 9.86 per cent increase in volume but a 9.86 per cent reduction in turnover over the same period last year.
In September alone, the country exported 20,000 tonnes of cashews and earned $97 million.
Cashew export turnover dropped in this period as export price was down compared with correspondent period last month. The average cashew price in the nine months was $4,600 per tonne, falling by 17.94 per cent.
The US remains a key importer of Vietnamese cashew nuts. More than 30 per cent of Vietnamese cashews were exported to US over the past nine months, an increase of 12.17 per cent over the last period.
Following the US is China with 19.1 per cent of cashew nuts imported from Viet Nam.
The cashew industry hopes to develop further in the coming months as the world economy recovers.
Viet Nam, along with countries globally had a poor cashew harvest this year. However demand remained high and prices were likely to increase until the end of the year, said the association.
To remain the number-one cashew nut exporter, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has proposed some ways to develop cashew industry. Trade promotion activities will be boosted in the near future.
Finding new markets and improving competitiveness were also important, the ministry said.
Also, the industry would directly export cashew instead of waiting for middle-men which is currently the case.
According to the ministry, Viet Nam had only several thousand hectares of cashew 20 years ago. At that time, the cashew yield was just thousands tonnes.
Today, cashew is grown on 350,000ha and 400,000 tonnes are harvested.
Since 2006, Viet Nam has become the leading exporter of cashew on the world market. Vietnamese cashew nuts have been exported to 78 markets worldwide.
Despite being the biggest global cashew exporter, and acreage used for farming cashews continually increasing, Viet Nam still lacks raw materials.
Cashew crop shortages have occurred in the last decade, with the industry only meeting 60 per cent of the demand for raw materials in the domestic market. The other 40 per cent was imported from Africa and Indonesia.
The shortage did not negatively affect cashew growers and businessmen. It encouraged them to choose new seeds that could bring higher yields and develop cashew farming in Laos and Cambodia, said Nguyen Duc Thanh, chairman of the association.
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