The export prices of Vietnamese pepper have been soaring by US$200 to USUS$1,600 recently, a record high for the last two years, according to the Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA).
The price hike is mostly attributed to increasingly global demand for pepper, which has been caused by thin supplies as major producers reported their bad harvest.
“Prices for Vietnamese pepper are likely to go up in the coming time,” an official from the VPA predicted.
The association also revealed that Vietnam, the world's largest pepper exporter, witnessed a sharp fall of 10 per cent in pepper output to only 90,000 tons of pepper in the crop year ending June 2006.
Meanwhile, statistics from the government showed that domestic enterprises exported 89,000 tons of pepper in the first seven months of this year, earning US$129 million, up 36.9 per cent and 44.3 per cent on-year, respectively.
The country, thus, has little pepper left in stock for exports for the rest of this year, the VPA said.
The country is expected to ship 100,000 tons of pepper in 2006, making up for more than 50 per cent of the world's total pepper shipments.
Vietnamese pepper products are currently available in as many as 80 overseas markets with 37 per cent of which to the EU, 31 per cent to Asian countries, and 25 per cent to North America. Other importers of Vietnamese pepper include Russia and the Middle East.
At present, Vietnam has 52,535 hectares under pepper cultivation with the majority in the Central Highlands and the southern region, the VPA reported.
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