VietNamNet Bridge – Australia has temporarily stopped providing cows to Vietnam so as to spend time on cooperating with Vietnamese competent agencies to dispel the information that Australian cows have been dumped on the Vietnamese market.

Supply short, price up

The director of a company in HCM City which provides Australian beef has confirmed that the supply has become short since Australian cow importers have cut down the supplies. He heard that the cow importers cannot buy Australian cows these days, because Australia has refused to sell more cows to Vietnam.

The sharp cuts in the volume of Australian beef launched into the market have immediately pushed the prices up. Not only Australian beef, but the imports from Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar have also become more expensive.

However, the representative of Trung Dong Company which has been importing Australian cows since 2012, has reassured the public that a ship with 1,500 Australian cows would dock at the ports on December 2, one month after the previous import consignment.

He said Trung Dong still keeps importing cows while it has not been informed about the supply interruption or about the investigation over the importers’ tax evasion.

Van Duc Muoi, General Director of Vissan, a big animal meat provider, has confirmed the shorter supply of Australian cows.

He said a new consignment of Australian cows would only arrive on December 9, which has forced Vissan to cut down the slaughtered output by 15 percent. Vissan now provides 40 cows to the market instead of 50 as previously.

Other sources said only the businesses, which have been importing Australian cows for a long time and can meet the strict requirements on farming and slaughtering, can continue the import. Meanwhile, the new applications for cow import have been put aside. The number of cows sold to Vietnam is also on the decrease.

Supply to be resumed soon

Nguyen Xuan Binh, Director of the Animal Healthcare Center Zone VI, which is in charge of Australian cow imports quarantine, has admitted the decrease in the number of licenses for Australian cow import. It seems that no license for the import in early 2014 has been granted.

However, Binh denied the information that Australia acts on its own and stops selling cows to Vietnam so as to clarify the rumor about the dumping in Vietnam.

“We have realized the sudden decrease in the number of granted licenses and we have found out that Indonesia has reached an agreement on importing a big amount of Australian cows,” Binh said.

“It is highly possible that Vietnamese businesses could not sign contracts with Australian partners due to the short supply,” he added.

Muoi from Vissan believes that Australia once tried to sell cows to Vietnam when Indonesia cut down the imports from the country. Nowadays, since Indonesia has resumed the big imports, Australia would prioritize to sell cows to Indonesia.

However, Muoi believes that the short supply situation would not last a long time. Vietnam has emerged as a potential market where the consumption is very good. About 50,000 Australian cows have been imported to Vietnam so far this year.

Some experts, affirming that Australian beef is “surprisingly cheap,” have called on to investigate if importers deliberately declare wrong import prices to evade tax and dump on the domestic market.

Kim Chi