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Commodity prices fall in January
Prices of many kinds of agricultural products, including coffee, pepper and cashew, have been falling over the past month and are expected to drop further in the coming time due to uncertainties in the world market.
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| Coffee is loaded for export by the An Giang Coffee Co. in the Dong Nai Industrial Park in the southern province of Dong Nai. Viet Nam exported an estimated 170,000 tonnes of coffee worth $350 million last month. |
Future pepper prices on the world market have dropped to US$5,700-$5,900 a tonne from $7,000-$8,000 a tonne in the early fourth quarter last year.
Viet Nam's pepper export price also fell by $400 per tonne last month.
Domestic pepper prices dropped to VND100,000 a kilo compared to the peak of VND155,000 a kilo last year.
Viet Nam exported 4,000 tonnes of pepper last month, earning $30 million, a reduction of 15.7 per cent in volume.
However, value increased by 29.1 per cent because pepper prices last month were higher than last January although prices were much lower than those in the latter months of last year.
According to the agricultural sector, pepper output this year may fall up to one-third compared to last year, due to unfavourable weather and diseases. The volume of pepper exports are expected to fall.
Similarly, coffee prices have edged down after the Lunar New Year by VND200,000-300,000, according to the Viet Nam Coffee and Cocoa Association.
On January 31, a tonne of coffee was priced at VND37.8 million ($1,800) in Dak Lak Province, VND37.6 million ($1,790) in Gia Lai and VND37.7 million ($1,795) in Lam Dong Province.
The price has continued to drop on February 2 and 3 to around VND36.7-36.9 million per tonne on average.
In London, Robusta coffee futures for March delivery dropped by $22 a tonne to $1,843. Viet Nam exported an estimated 170,000 tonnes of coffee worth $350 million last month, a reduction of 20.9 per cent in volume and 15.3 per cent in value over the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Like pepper, coffee output is expected to fall this year due to unfavourable weather and the high number of old coffee trees.
The situation is also the same in the cashew and rubber industries, with prices falling significantly.
The ministry said export turnover from agricultural, forestry and fisheries products last month went down by 16.3 per cent over the same period last year to about $1.8 billion.
Of that amount, exports of key agricultural products fell by 19 per cent.
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