VietNamNet Bridge – The presence of foreigners in the coffee coordination committee, who now work for international coffee groups, has raised the worry that the Vietnamese coffee industry would be swayed by foreigners.

Established under the Decision No. 1729 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) dated July 30, 2013, the names of the committee’s members have only been made public recently.

The two foreign members of the committee are now the MARD’s partners, belonging to the two representative offices of the two multi-national coffee export groups.

This has made Vietnamese coffee firms exceedingly astonished.

What does the committee do?

The coordination committee’s major task is acting as the counselor to MARD, who gives strategic advice to the ministry on the issues relating to the coffee industry development in short and long term.

A businessman, who is the owner of a coffee joint stock company, said he could not understand why a committee which takes the responsibility of helping map out the development of the Vietnamese coffee industry, needs foreign businessmen.

“The ministry (MARD) had not consulted with domestic firms before making the decision. It also has been trying to hide information from enterprises,” he said.

“We have only heard about the committee and its members recently by reading the brief news on mass media,” he continued.

The key industry “exposes the flank”

Experts all say that coffee should be listed among the key industries of Vietnam. The country is the biggest robusta exporter in the world.

Vietnam still lags behind some other countries in terms of the intensive farming technology and the products’ added value, but its productivity has exceeded Brazil and some other big coffee growers including Indonesia or Africa (1.5 tons per hectare vs. 1.2 tons, 800 kilos and 600 kilos, respectively).

And though it only makes up $3 billion to the total export turnover of tens of billions of dollars, the industry creates 600,000 jobs and relates to 300,000 households, which is equal to 2.93 percent of the labor force in agriculture and 1.83 percent of the country’s labor force. It also brings jobs to indirect workers in the fields of logistics, marketing, distribution and export.

Bad consequences anticipated

A question has been raised that if it is necessary to have foreign businessmen in the coordination committee which plays an important role in programming the coffee industry development.

The above said businessman said MARD might think that Vietnamese manufacturers, officials associations and farmers are not capable enough to help develop the industry.

The presence of foreigners as the members of the committee is thought to help the ministry in the works relating to the trade promotion, marketing or market expansion.

However, Vietnamese coffee firms believe that this is not a reason to consider admitting foreigners to the committee.

There is no reason for MARD to provide all the important information on the development strategies to the foreigners and let them get involved in the ministry’s management work.

The Vietnamese coffee industry has been facing a lot of problems after the ‘crisis” in 2005, 2009, and in 2013. Vietnamese firms have many times complained that the material market has been controlled by foreign companies.

K. Chi