|
Chinese businesses invade Vietnam for materials
Over the last two years, many Chinese business people have arrived in Vietnam to seek materials and resources. They compete with Vietnamese businesses to buy everything, from small anchovies to rubber latex and scrap tires.
“Chinese business people go directly to shrimp ponds to purchase shrimp from farmers. They go directly to fishing ports and wait there to purchase fish from fisherman. And they always pay higher than the Vietnamese pay,” explained Tran Van Linh, General Director of Thuan Phuoc Seafood Company in Da Nang.
This is why most seafood processing factories lack enough materials.
Previously, Chinese business agents came to Vietnam to purchase dried anchovies and bring them back to China to process finished products. In the last two years, they now purchase fresh fish directly from Vietnamese small merchants and farmers. Then they set up Chinese-owned workshops along the coast to process the fish themselves.
These Chinese agents do not make investments under their names, but under Vietnamese names. After processing, they export the finished products to China with labels from 100 percent Vietnamese-owned enterprises.
According to Nguyen Ngoc Duc, Deputy Director of DKPT Company, an anchovy exporter, Chinese competition will force owners of small fish dry workshops to go bankrupt.
Nguyen Thi Thu Sac, Director of Hai Nam Company and Chair of the Dried Seafood Committee under the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), remarked that domestic dried seafood processors cannot collect enough materials for processing.
“A lot of Chinese boats contact Vietnamese in international territorial waters to purchase ocean products. They also come directly to fishing ports to collect fish,” Sac complained, adding that this has made Vietnamese enterprises unable to buy high-quality products.
Linh claimed that China’s seafood processing factories seriously lack materials, so business agents are rushing to Vietnam to collect shrimp, leaving no material for domestic processors.
Previously, Vietnamese business merchants had to go to the Mong Cai border gate to sell rubber latex to the Chinese, but now Chinese business agents come directly to Vietnamese workshops. They always pay in advance, or even give capital support to producers.
“It was very difficult to sell rubber latex in the past. I had to carry latex to the border gate or try to sell latex to domestic tire producers, who always required high quality. Nowadays, I can sell all my products easily and I do not have to go anywhere,” a Tay Ninh rubber latex producer noted.
Chinese agents, mostly coming from Yun Nan and Guang Xi, can obtain bigger profits when buying resources in Vietnam and carrying them by land to China instead of importing them. Even when they have to pay high rates for Vietnamese materials, it’s still saves them money.
Timber suppliers like selling to the Chinese, because they pay higher than Vietnamese companies and do not require high quality products.
While Chinese businesses scout for timber to consume, domestic wooden furniture producers are being hit hard. Plantation wood prices have jumped by 20 percent over the last few months.
vietnamnet, TBKTSG
|
