On December 21, in Ho Chi Minh City, the Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA) held a seminar on “Promoting the export of pepper and spices from Vietnam under the EVFTA Agreement”.
An intensive pepper garden with high yield.
According to VPA, by the end of November 2022, Vietnam exported more than 212,000 tons of pepper of all kinds, with a turnover of 950 million USD. Compared to the same period last year, the export volume decreased by 15%, equivalent to more than 37,000 tons, but the turnover increased by 4%, equivalent to 34 million USD.
It is estimated that for the whole year of 2022, pepper export turnover has not reached the USD 1 billion mark as in previous years. The reason is due to the objective factors of the world economy’s recession in many key markets. Difficulty in exporting causes the price of raw pepper in Vietnam to continuously decrease. Besides, the increasing cost of fertilizers makes pepper growers face many difficulties.
At the moment, the 2023 pepper harvest is starting in some districts in Dak Nong and after the Tet holiday will enter the full harvest, the output is expected to increase slightly compared to 2023.
Ms. Hoang Thi Lien, President of VPA, one of the positive factors in pepper export activities in 2022 is that thanks to Vietnam’s signing of a free trade agreement with Europe (EVFTA), it exports pepper to the European market. This market has many advantages of 0% tax rate compared to other competitors such as India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka or Cambodia.
However, the biggest challenge with this market is that the technical regulations and product quality are constantly changing towards more and more stringent. Therefore, businesses and farmers (cooperatives) need to closely link together in production to create a stable and sustainable source of raw materials, meeting the requirements of the market.
“It is expected that in 2023, with the opening of the Chinese market after the epidemic and the recovery of the pepper market in general, Vietnam’s pepper exports will return to the list of billion-dollar crops,” Ms. Lien said. .
From a close-up perspective, Ms. Nguyen Nhat Minh, a representative of Vietnam Insight Company, assessed that in 2022, Vietnam will still be the world’s largest pepper exporter, but in Germany, a major importer and distributor of pepper. In Europe, Brazilian pepper still dominates with 43% market share, while Vietnam is 38%. German companies mainly import pepper to grind, pack and re-export with a proportion of up to about 50% of total imported pepper.
Ms. Minh said that the German and EU markets in general are aiming for high-quality, organic pepper products. This is something that Vietnamese exporters need to pay attention to. In order to better access the market, Vietnamese businesses need to actively participate in specialized international fairs and international spice associations.
Mr. Luong Phuoc Vinh, Southeast Asia director of Tentamus Group, said: The standards of European regulatory agencies have been higher than the common level of many markets and reality to bring goods into the systems. Their supermarket is even more difficult. For example, a chemical residue of a certain EU agency is 0.1%, the supermarket systems only allow 0.07%. These are the things that Vietnamese exporters need to pay attention to if they want to penetrate deeper into this market.
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