Pepper export seen bringing US$300 million this year
By Van Nam - The Saigon Times Daily
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| A farmer takes care of pepper plants in the Central Highlands of Daklak Photo: Van Nam |
HCMC – The country’s pepper exports are forecast to amount to around 90,000 tons worth about US$300 million this year.
In the first seven months of the year alone, revenue from pepper shipments totaled some 57,000 tons worth some US$202 million, according to the Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA).
Do Ha Nam, chairman of the VPA, told the Daily that besides some traditional markets for the country’s pepper such as Singapore, the U.S., United Arab Emirates and Western European countries, this commodity had entered new foreign markets.
Eastern European countries and China, among others, have growing demand for Vietnamese pepper, thus spurring export prices, he said, adding the pepper export price had been hovering around US$3,000 a ton for months.
The VPA chairman said the country now had 50,000 hectares under pepper cultivation and that this farming area should be kept unchanged so that export output could reach some 100,000 tons a year.
Last year, pepper exporters fetched a total of some US$200 million with a volume of some 80,000 tons.