Statistics of Vietnam’s major import and export products in the first seven months of 2004 and for the whole year.

Statistics of Vietnam's major import and export products in the first seven months of 2004 and for the whole year.

Coffee Price on the rise

The price of Vietnam's exported coffee has been rising since July 2004, standing at US$685 per tones. The product's quality improvement, the trend of reserving more coffee on the world market, a decline in quality of Brazil's coffee, floods and storms in India, and the increasing demand for coffee in China and the European Union are major reasons for the price hike, according to the Ministry of Trade (MoT)

Belgium is now being the biggest coffee importer of Vietnam, much surpassing the two traditional markets of Germany and the US.

Vietnam exported about 50,000 tonnes of coffee worth US$34-35 million in July, bringing the total volume in the first seven months of 2004 to 610,000 tonnes and total value to US$406 million, up 50 per cent and 45 per cent in terms of quantity and value, respectively, over the same period last year, reported the MoT.

The ministry estimated that Vietnam will sell 830,000 tonnes of coffee abroad in 2004 with the value of US$540 million.

Vietnam's Pepper Benefits from Global Price Hike

Pepper prices on foreign markets have seen an average rise of US$60-80 per tonne, creating more profits for Vietnamese pepper exporters. The price of export pepper has reached to US$1,400-1,450 per tonne, said the Ministry of Trade.   

The good news mainly comes from the report on the world's pepper output recently released by the International Pepper Council (ICC) noting that the output of Indonesia so far this year has reduced by 35 per cent to 53,000 tonnes from 86,000 tonnes of the same period last year, Malaysia to 25,000 tonnes and Brazil to 45,000 tonnes.

Abundant pepper reserves of export enterprises and farmers and an increase in the foreign exchange of Vietnamese dong against USD have also contributed to such higher benefits. 

Vietnam's pepper export in the first seven months of this year stood at 72,000 tonnes with a total value of US$97 million, up 33 per cent and 30 per cent in terms of quantity and value, said the Ministry of Trade.

Of which, the export volume in July was between 9-10,000 tonnes worth US$14 million.

Major pepper markets of Vietnam are the US with 13 per cent, Singapore 10 per cent, the Netherlands 9.3 per cent and China 8 per cent.

Tea Export Value in Seven Months Tops US$47Mln

Vietnam's tea export in the first seven months of this year stood at 51,000 tonnes, up 76.5 per cent over the same period last year, with the export value of US$47 million, an on-year increase of 60.3 per cent.

The price of the export item in the period was around US$921.5/tonne, falling by US$82/tonne compared to the price of the same period last year.

The markets of Taiwan, China and Japan imported more than 1,000 tonnes each from Vietnam at the price of over US$1,000 per tonne. Russia and the US imported larger amounts of tea, however, the prices to these market were lower because the country has also sold unprocessed tea to the markets.

The Ministry of Trade forecasts that Vietnam will realise the target of exporting 75,000 tonnes of tea in 2004 with the export value of US$75 million.

11,758 CBU Automobiles Imported in First Seven Months

Vietnam imported 11,758 completely-built automobiles in the first seven months of this year worth US$161 million, including 1,800 units worth US$25 million in July. The import volume in July was equal to 68.7 per cent of the same period last year due to the low purchasing power on the domestic market. 

(Source: The Ministry of Trade)