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Vietnam imports produce on massive scale
The lack of technical barriers has been cited as the main reason for huge farm produce imports in recent months.
A Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) report showed that, in April 2010, the total value of farm produce, agriculture materials and domestic production materials was $1.5 billion.
This raises the total import revenue of these products in the first four months of 2010 to $4.65 billion, an increase of 80 percent over the same period of 2009.
The report revealed that rubber and cotton revenues increased the most, double that of the same period of 2009, followed by timber and wooden products (+ 51.8 percent), and animal feed and materials for making animal feed (+ 33 percent)
MARD representatives commented on the massive imports of farm produce and agriculture materials as foreseeable events, because Vietnam is cutting import tariffs under the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) and the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) of the ASEAN bloc. Under these commitments, import tariffs on many goods now enjoy low tax rates of zero to five percent. Thus, imported farm produce has become cheaper and can more easily penetrate the domestic market.
The official went on to note that importing materials is necessary for local production. For example, Vietnam needs timber, because domestic sources meet only 20 percent of the demand for materials to produce wood furniture for export.
Analysts have observed that Vietnam is importing products that it can produce domestically. Vietnam still imported sugar in large quantities, for instance, in the first four months of 2010.
Tran Duc Tung, an agriculture expert, admitted that Vietnam must import many kinds of agriculture materials for production, but added that the country should not import so many unessential products. Tung cited the lack of technical barriers to restrict imports.
“To date, Vietnam has not installed any technical barriers on farm produce imports,” he remarked. “Meanwhile, Vietnam’s farm produce meets with obstacles in penetrating other markets due to their technical barriers.”
In support of Tung’s observations, Ha Huu Phai, Secretary General of the Vietnam Sugar Cane and Sugar Association, predicts that Vietnam has great potential in the sugar industry. He claimed that policies on developing inner strength still have problems, so domestic production does not meet demand.
Doan Xuan Hoa, a senior official of MARD, maintained that with Vietnam’s lack of reasonable policies to support salt workers, Vietnam must continue to import salt too, even while salt workers suffer losses.
Tung stressed that, over the long-term, the most effective import restrictions will improve the quality of domestically-made products.
vietnamnet, Dau tu
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