Suggestion of 'exchanging Vietnamese pigs for foreign goods'

"If the importing country has difficulty in payment, we can introduce policies for selling pigs on credit, exchanging goods..." That is the idea proposed by Mr. Vu Van Tam, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, at the Vietnam Pork Export Promotion Forum recently held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam said that the recent pork rescue has helped farmers escape the crisis. However, if we call for price reductions and appeal to people's confidence, we will only be able to solve the problem of tens of thousands of pigs, which is nothing compared to the millions of pigs on farms.

Vietnamese pork exported to the world through official channels is still limited.

According to Deputy Minister Tam, the urgent measure now is to export to foreign markets. That market could be countries near us such as the Philippines, Myanmar, China, etc.

The Philippines alone is a country of 95 million people, but their pig herd is only 12 million, so every year they have to import additional pork.

“We do not have a modern slaughterhouse that can freeze pigs according to standards, so we can sell live pigs to them by shipping, through ports in the Central region, it only takes 2 to 3 days to arrive.

Even if they have difficulty paying, we can introduce policies for selling pigs on credit, bartering goods or any other form. Thereby, we can resolve all the remaining pigs because the longer we leave it, the greater the risk of disease, which will be a double loss,” Deputy Minister Tam suggested.

Vietnam's informal exports to China reached nearly 12 million pigs (33,000 pigs/day).

The Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development also said that in the current context, businesses should focus on producing and exporting processed products. At the same time, to avoid falling into a crisis, businesses must invest synchronously, have cold storage for goods, and have modern production lines that meet international standards.

At the forum, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong informed that Vietnam's pork export to other countries has not had any breakthrough for many years. Most of the pigs raised are mainly exported to China through unofficial channels.

Mr. Cuong cited a report from the Global Research Company (IBC), in 2016, Vietnam exported nearly 12 million pigs to China (33,000 pigs/day).

It is expected that in 2017, Vietnam will export about 2.4 million pigs to China (down 80% compared to 2016). If the situation is not optimistic, the above export figure will decrease to only 1.17 million pigs...

Meanwhile, official exports are limited. As for official pork exports, Vietnam only exported about 15-20 thousand tons (equivalent to 200,000 pigs) to Hong Kong and Malaysia during the period from 2013 to 2016.

The above figures show that Vietnam's current pork export situation is completely disproportionate to its production potential.

According to Ho Chi Minh City Law