VietNamNet Bridge – Tens of cashew nut exporters incur losses, while the Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacas) has fallen into complete mess. It’s still unclear about the future of the Vietnam’s cashew industry.
|
Only 50 percent of invited members were present at the eighth conference of
Vinacas held on December 21. It was a burning conference, where participants
quarreled noisily, a signal showing that the members were in
serious divergence.
After the speech delivered by Vinacas’ Chair Nguyen Thai Hoc, former Deputy
Chair of Vinacas Nguyen Van Lang made participants thunderstruck when denying all
the achievements reported by Hoc.
“The business result in 2009-2012 showed the low capability in the management
and forecasting of Vinacas’ leaders, Vinacas’ Chair in person and of the 'G20
group',” Lang said.
The 2011-2012 crop was described as a “disaster” to the cashew industry, when
the cashew nut price dropped dramatically from US$10,000 per ton to $7,000. A lot of enterprises incurred loss and many have been on the verge of
bankruptcy, including the "G20 group", considered the group of the
most powerful cashew exporters.
Vinacas once predicted that the failure of the cashew crop would lead to the
increase of the cashew nut prices. However, what happened in reality was
quite different. Hundreds of thousands of tons of raw cashew nuts lied idle in
storehouses and were not put into processing because of the unsalability.
The long storage time made the cashew nut quality degrade. Meanwhile, more than
a half of processed products were low grade which could not be sold. Cashew
exporters, who bought tens of thousands of tons of materials from domestic
sources and importers at the exorbitant high prices of US$1300-1500 per
ton, could not sell products to get back money.
The managers of Vinacas have been accused of deliberately misinterpreting the
instruction of the Prime Minister.
In April 2008, the Prime Minister decided that the state budget would prop up $35,000 to Vinacas, so that the association can join forces with other
founding members (Cepci from India and Sindicaju from Brazil) to set up the
world’s cashew association.
The Instruction of the Prime Minister said that Vinacas was allowed to collect
one dollar from every tone of cashew nut exported from Vinacas’ members. The
money would be used to pay the yearly dues to the world’s cashew association
whose Vietnam is a member.
However, Nguyen Thai Hoc, Vinacas’ Chair, affirmed that Vinacas collects one
dollar from every ton of cashew nut exported to raise funds for the activities
to be organized.
As such, over the last many years, the money raised from cashew nut exporters
has been used for “the re-investment activities of the cashew sector.”
Vinacas’ leadership has been accused of setting up the G20 group which comprises
of 29 enterprises, the “big guys” in the cashew industry. The G20 enterprises
have been making the corrupt use of their positions in the association to put
smaller enterprises under coercion.
In early October 2012, for example, Vinacas proposed the government to list
cashew export as a type of conditional business branch without consulting with
the member companies.
Under the proposal, enterprises would be allowed to export cashew nuts if they
have at least one processing workshop with the capacity of 2,500 tons at least.
Vu Thai Son, Director of Thanh Son Company, said that if the proposal is
approved, hundreds of small and medium cashew enterprises would go bankrupted,
because they don’t have money for such heavy investments.
Lao Dong