Chinese traders hunt for Vietnamese specialties: Warning of “bombing”
The Chinese market is scouring all the gardens to buy goods, causing some types of Vietnamese fruit to increase sharply in price, some reaching record highs. While enjoying the price increase, we still cannot forget the times when they were “bombed”, suddenly stopped buying, causing prices to drop sharply, and had to call for rescue.
Go to the garden to buy
A year ago, banana growers in Dong Nai had to let ripe bananas fall all over their gardens, dump them for cows or sell them at a low price of 1,000 VND/kg,... because Chinese traders suddenly stopped buying. However, at the same time, banana prices in Thanh Binh commune (Trang Bom, Dong Nai) increased sharply.
Currently, the price of bananas sold at the garden is 17,000-18,000 VND/kg, the highest price in the past 2 years.
Notably, not only did the price of bananas skyrocket, but Chinese traders also went to the gardens to place deposits a month in advance. In order to buy the goods, they even searched all the gardens to find bananas. Some traders in the West who bought bananas for domestic sale this time could not buy them because Chinese traders had booked all the bananas. Thanks to that, banana growers can earn 700 million VND/ha of bananas this season.
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| Banana prices in Dong Nai are increasing sharply, many Chinese traders are coming to the garden to buy goods. |
Admitting the above, Mr. Nguyen Tan Cuong, Vice Chairman of Thanh Binh Commune People's Committee, said that the high price of bananas was due to traders increasing their purchases to bring to China. However, this year's banana crop, bananas sold at high prices was also due to people learning from the previous crop, not planting at the same time, so the supply to the market was evenly distributed, not causing a market glut.
Mr. Tran Van Can, owner of a banana production facility in Hung Yen, said that this year China is buying up the goods so the price is higher than in previous years.
Not only bananas, in Tien Giang, Hau Giang, Can Tho provinces, traders also go to the gardens to buy Thai jackfruit to export to China, causing the price of this item to increase to a record high, up to 45,000-48,000 VND/kg for grade 1, grade 2 is about 40,000 VND/kg.
According to Mr. Tran Van Tam, a jackfruit grower in Truong Xuan commune (Thoi Lai, Can Tho), at this time the amount of jackfruit in the garden is almost harvested, but traders take turns coming to his house to beg and pay in advance to buy jackfruit at a high price. Therefore, on average, he can earn half a million dong for each jackfruit.
Jackfruit growers in Hau Giang and Tien Giang estimate that with the current high price of jackfruit, people earn about 800 million VND per hectare of jackfruit.
Meanwhile, in Long An, Tien Giang and Binh Thuan, dragon fruit growers are also happy because the price of this commodity has increased sharply, lasting from the Lunar New Year until now. Even in the first days of March, in order to buy dragon fruit for export to China, traders even went to the garden and agreed to pay in advance to the garden owner in the hope of collecting the goods.
Many gardeners are actively using lights to grow dragon fruit in time to harvest the new crop and sell it at high prices this time.
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| Vietnam's fruit and vegetable products depend too much on the Chinese market. |
China price manipulation
The massive purchase of fruits for export to China is not a new story. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2017, China ranked first in fruit import turnover from Vietnam, reaching 2.17 billion USD, accounting for over 75.6% of the total export turnover of fruits and vegetables of the whole country, an increase of nearly 53% compared to the same period in 2016.
However, the story of Chinese traders racing to buy at high prices, then suddenly stopping buying, causing Vietnamese fruit and vegetable prices to plummet and farmers to suffer heavy losses, is not uncommon and has been repeated for the past decade.
Needless to say, also in Dong Nai, this year banana farmers are all excited because bananas are purchased at sky-high prices, even Chinese traders come to the garden to buy. However, many people cannot forget the bitter experience when at this time last year they were "bombed" by Chinese traders, suddenly stopping buying, causing banana prices to drop sharply, forcing them to call for rescue.
Not only that, in the first half of 2017, dozens of Vietnamese agricultural products fell sharply in price, requiring rescue calls because China stopped buying, causing output to be blocked.
However, sharing about this issue, banana growers in Trang Bom (Dong Nai) said that even though they know this, they still have to sell to China. Because, only China can buy a large amount of bananas, while the domestic market cannot consume all of them.
An industry expert shared that Vietnamese agricultural products depend too much on the Chinese market, especially since we export to China through unofficial channels, price manipulation is inevitable. The price of Vietnamese agricultural products increases or decreases entirely depending on one market, while farmers are completely passive.
Faced with the situation of Chinese traders manipulating the dragon fruit market, Mr. Luong Van Hai, Vice Chairman of Binh Thuan Provincial People's Committee, recently issued an official dispatch requesting the Department of Industry and Trade and the Provincial Police to urgently rectify this situation.
Meanwhile, in the face of the influx of fruits to China in early March, Lang Son province had to send a document requesting the Prime Minister to direct central ministries, branches and localities with fruits and agricultural products exported to China to reasonably regulate the amount of goods at Lang Son's border gates to avoid congestion and price gouging.
