Material prices of pangasius in Mekong Delta in Vietnam have gone down dramatically this month due to oversupply issues, the Vietnam Industry and Trade Information Center (VITIC) announced on 13 December.
Actual selling rates have been lower than production costs for a few months, incurring losses for local farmers, it said.
While it costs around VND 20,000 (USD 0.86, EUR 0.77) to farm a kilogram of pangasius with size of 700 grams to 800 grams, it was sold at VND 19,500 (USD 0.84, EUR 0.75) per kilogram in Can Tho City in early December, down VND 10,000 (USD 0.43, EUR 0.37) per kilogram from a year earlier.
The losses for the bigger size of 1.2 kilograms to 1.3 kilograms were even higher, as prices remained at the low of VND 18,500 to VND 19,500 (USD 0.80 to USD 0.84, EUR 0.72 to EUR 0.75) per kilogram.
The falling prices were attributed to the fact that farmers in Mekong Delta have rushed to expand farming following a rising trend in prices in 2018, resulting in a surplus of supply in recent months. Currently many farmers are hesitant to begin new crops, as they are not sure about prices next year, VITIC said.
Due to the lower prices, some processing companies with signed contracts to buy material from farmers are now proposing a reduction of VND 1,000 (USD 0.043, EUR 0.039) per kilogram for the committed volumes, as their export activities have been hit hard this year.
Vietnam exported pangasius worth USD 1.64 billion (EUR 1.47 billion) in the first 10 months of 2019, down 10 percent year-on-year, as sales to the United States, Brazil, and Colombia slowed.
Photo courtesy of Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP)
