Regulating world pepper prices: do not let farmers take care of themselves

Regulating world pepper prices: do not let farmers take care of themselves
Regulating world pepper prices: do not let farmers take care of themselves
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If you look at the statistics of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Trade Center (ITC), it can be seen that the comments of the President of the Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA) ) that Vietnamese farmers today have been able to regulate world pepper prices is reasonable. However, regulating how to benefit yourself is a floating story.

Two “upstream” trends in world prices

From the statistics on the quantity and value of pepper exported by FAO and ITC, it is possible to draw a chart of Vietnam's pepper export prices compared to the remaining 35 pepper growing countries in the world (after hereinafter referred to as 35 other countries) as below.

Accordingly, in the period 1991-2000, our pepper export price was continuously lower than the average price of 35 other countries, and in the next 10 years, only two years (2007 and 2008) had higher prices. .

Lower export prices than those of competitors not only mean economic losses but also mean that we cannot regulate world pepper prices.

However, starting from 2011 until now, the two opposite price trends are clear:

Firstly, during the six years (2011 – 2016), our pepper export price not only remained nearly continuously higher than the average price of 35 other countries, but the level of “separation” became more and more clear. .

Specifically, at the time of 2011, with the export price of US $ 5,913 / ton, our country's price was only 368 USD / ton higher and 6.6% higher than the average price of 35 other countries. And at the time when world pepper prices reached an all-time record (2015), this gap reached a record level of 944 USD / ton and 10.9%.

Thus, if compared with 2010, the export price of pepper in our country in 2015 increased to 5,970 USD / ton, equivalent to 165.6%, while the average price of 35 other countries increased only $ 5.001 / ton. and 137.7%.

Secondly, on the contrary, after the process of “bottoming out”, reducing prices and closing the gap with competitors from January 2016 to January this year, the export price of pepper from our country from February to is constantly being pulled down and getting lower and lower.

Specifically, by pushing the export volume to over 20,000 tons / month in the first three months of 2016 (March to May 2016), the export price of pepper in our country has been significantly lower than competitors. competition (322 – 641 USD / ton, corresponding to 3.9 – 7.7%). And then, with the sharp reduction of export volume, the higher price gap was re-established and the whole year price was only 427 USD / ton higher than other countries (5.6%).

However, since February 2017 until now, with the push of export to unprecedented records, the export price of pepper in our country plummeted to only US $ 4,719 / ton in June. By US $ 2,667 / ton (36.2%) compared to January, meanwhile, the export prices of the eight remaining major pepper producing countries of the world, though plummeted, the corresponding reduction is only 1,118 USD / ton (16.1%).

Looking back at Vietnam's “driving force” role

If in the period of 2011 – 2015 we were the “locomotive” leading to the increase of export prices of competitors, from the beginning of the year until now, we were still the “locomotive”, but the export price was pulled. exports of competitors decreased.

Why is there … paradox “leader” of this?

If you look at FAO's picture of world pepper production, it can be seen that the tight supply is the main reason why pepper prices have started to increase since 2011 (after reaching a record 443,000 tons in 2006, production). world pepper almost continuously decreased and reached the bottom in 2012 with only 411,000 tons).
However, the question continues to be asked, according to the statistics of Vietnam and Malaysia (citing IPC sources in Indonesia), why the total world pepper production in 2015 is estimated to have soared to 497,000 tons. That the world pepper price is still at a record high?

It can be said that this solution lies in the regulation of world pepper prices of Vietnamese farmers.

That is, despite such a record season and the production also reached a record of 177,000 tons, our country's export volume in 2015 was only 131,000 tons, a sharp decrease of 23,500 tons and 15.2% compared to 2014. No However, ITC's statistics also show that, in this year, our country's imports have increased sharply and reached 22,300 tons.

This fact means that, about 60,000 tons have been put back, making the proportion of our country in the “pepper basket” in the world fell sharply to 31.2%, while in 2014 reached a record 38.3 %.

And at present, the cause of our country's pepper prices to decline is because we “sell” too strongly. In just nine months, we exported 181,000 tons, up 23.3% over the same period and far exceeded the whole year 2015. Meanwhile, the total exports of the eight other major pepper producing countries in the The first half of this year only reached 51,300 tons, a slight decrease of 1.8% over the same period.

Taken together, the total export volume of Vietnamese pepper and the other eight major pepper producing countries in the first six months of this year reached 177,000 tons, up 11.6% over the same period. This fact rejects the assumption that Vietnam's export prices plummeted because of weak world demand, poor quality of pepper in Vietnam …

Need State support

With an almost continuously increasing market share, although Vietnamese farmers have played a role in regulating the global pepper market since 2011, it is clear that we are harming ourselves. Because we have not only missed the golden opportunity in 2015, but are also suffering from the consequences of “hugging” too much in the time of fever, so it has been and will certainly continue. accelerate “discharge of goods causing floods” in the world pepper market.

The main reason is probably that thousands of farmers in our country have enough economic resources to regulate the consumption of their goods but are still blind about the overall balance of supply and demand of the pepper market. world.

Therefore, instead of just giving general recommendations, for example, farmers should not massively expand the area … management agencies should be responsible for collecting the necessary data to draw a picture of the situation and prospects of world pepper market.

Source Nguyen Dinh Bich (thesaigontimes.vn)


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