HCM City (VNA) - Cassava processors are facing difficulties due to a rawmaterial shortage and, especially, tightening of overland imports anderection of barriers to imports of farm produce by China, their largest exportmarket. 

According to the VietnamCassava Association, there are 120 cassava starch factories in the country witha processing capacity of over 15.5 million tonnes. But cassava productionis only 8.8 million tonnes, meaning there is a shortfall of 6.7 million tonnes,it said.

Nghiem Minh Tien,permanent deputy chairman of the association, said most processing plants havenot bothered to develop cassava growing areas and mainly buy from farmers,leading to fierce competition, pushing up prices and thus making their productsless competitive.

The rapid increase inthe number of processing plants and processing capacity has disrupted thezoning plans for cassava. Besides, the industry heavily relies on the Chinesemarket, which accounts for 90 percent of the country’s exports, mainly throughland borders, and so China’s tightening of overland imports has caused itdifficulties, he said.

Since November 15 lastyear China has banned imports through the Guangxi border gate. Only 66 of theassociation’s member companies are now allowed to export via the Mong Caiborder gate and some others through Bang Tuong.

Many other members havenot obtained approval to export to China, and it is preparing to petitionthe Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to obtain Chinese approval,the association said.

It has petitioned theministry to get Chinese permission for more Vietnamese firms to export cassavaand specify technical and packaging requirements.

Speaking at a recent seminar inHCM City to seek solutions to remove difficulties faced by theindustry, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Naminstructed the Agro Processing and Market Development Authority to review thecapacity of 120 processing factories and urge localities to be selective in approvingnew plants.

Nam also called onthe authority to collaborate with the association to restructure the cassavaindustry. Regarding technicalbarriers in the Chinese market, he said the Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment would send a note asking the Chinese side to offer training toVietnamese enterprises in quality standards, including for the cassavaindustry.

Vietnam exported 2.22million tonnes of cassava and cassava products worth 881.26 million USD in thefirst 11 months of 2018, a fall of 36.6 percent in volume and 3.1 percent invalue from the previous year.-VNA