Nguyen Xuan Duong, Deputy Director of the Livestock Husbandry Department under MARD, affirmed that the monopoly in animal feed pricing could not exist in Vietnam.
MARD has proposed the Government to put several categories of feed materials, the supply of which has been relying on imports, into the list of products which need to have prices stabilized. For example, the list of the products which have the prices controlled by the State.
One of the products is soya oil cake.
According to Le Ba Lich, Chairman of the Animal Feed Association, said that
In general,
While having asked the State to control the prices of several groups of feed materials, MARD has also suggested the material import taxes of the products which could not be produced domestically. The ministry has asked the state to assist enterprises to collect materials when the world’s prices are low.
In long term, the ministry said that it is necessary to set up reasonable prices to push up the production of feed materials domestically.
Duong from MARD said that
Duong related a story that a Vietnamese company signed a contract on importing soya oil cake at US $320/ton only. As the price unexpected rose to over US $400/ton, the exporter ‘escaped’ the affair. The Vietnamese company could not take legal proceedings against the foreign partner in this case because of the weak financial capability and low legal capability. Meanwhile, no partner would dare escape from the contracts made with big groups like Cargill or CP Group.
When asked if there exists the monopoly in feed pricing, Duong affirmed that the monopoly could not exist in Vietnam, as no feed producer can hold more than 30% of the market share.
The question has been raised after people found out that the domestic feed prices have not decreased, despite the sharp falls in the prices of feed material prices in the world’s market.
“There has been no sign showing that big feed producers dominate the domestic market,” Duong said.
He added that that the feed material prices in the world have increased again since the end of February and early March (rice brand up by 15%, cassava up between 15-20%, soya oil cake up between 20-25%). However, feed producers have not raised the sale prices of finished products as they have stored materials, which is enough for a two or three month production.
Ha Yen