VietNamNet Bridge - Rice exports to China across the border have been stagnant since the second half of April as China unexpectedly barred rice imports from Vietnam.

 

 

Nguyen Cong Khanh, a merchant in Hai Phong City who collects rice for export to China, said rice exports had reached a deadlock.

“Only some big dealers still can bring rice to China through their own way,” he said. “China has been prohibiting rice imports across the China-Vietnam border gates.”

“They (China) block the cross-border rice imports so as to collect tax on the imports from Vietnam. I am sure their demand is still very high,” Khanh said.

He emphasized that while China has stopped importing rice from Vietnam, it continued to buy Cambodian rice in large quantities.

There are no official statistics about the volume of rice stuck at the border gates because it cannot go through the border. However, a rice exporter estimates that the figure is thousands of tons.

A paradox exists that China, a large country with 1.4 billion consumers, which is forecast to lack food in the near future, refuses rice from Vietnam, an important supply source.

Professor Vo Tong Xuan, who is considered the leading Vietnamese rice expert, noted that despite great advantages, Vietnam still has difficulties in exporting rice to China.

According to Xuan, the majority of rice has been exported across the border by Vietnamese exporters even though they know cross-border exports cannot bring high profit. This is because they do not have to fill out many kinds of documents and do not have to pay tax. 

Vietnamese farmers cultivate 50404, a rice variety easy to grow. But it does not have high quality. Therefore, they find it difficult to export rice to other markets through official ways.

However, Xuan pointed out that the current rice export strategy would do nothing good to Vietnam, while it damages roads which have to carry rice on heavy trucks and forces farmers to sell rice cheap. 

Meanwhile, Vietnam is still weak in carrying out trade promotion strategies. The Ministries of Industry & Trade and Agriculture & Rural Development do not lay down reasonable policies to require Vietnamese export companies to sell high quality rice.

An analyst, when asked to comment about the deadlock in the rice export to China, stressed that Vietnamese should not accept low selling prices.

“It is China which needs Vietnam’s rice and Vietnam needs to control the prices,” he said.

“Economists estimated that by 2020, China would lack food, estimated at 10 million tons,” he said.

“Vietnam needs to take initiative in the trade with China. It must not entreat favors. Chinese want Vietnam’s rice because it cannot find better suppliers,” he said. 

Dat Viet