April 4, 2012

In terms of volume, Vietnam's imports of animal feed currently account for 35% and 45% in value of the country's total demand, the newspaper reported, citing an official from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The country's current animal feed demand is around 24 million tonnes a year, Nguyen Xuan Duong, deputy head of the ministry's Livestock Husbandry Department said, adding that local animal feed producers heavily depend on the imported materials.

Statistics from the ministry showed that Vietnam spent US$3.7 billion on importing 8.9 million tonnes of animal feed and materials last year. The import value was as high as US$476 million in the first quarter of this year.

Vietnam currently has a total of 233 animal feed processing plants and only 56 of which are foreign-invested ones which control a combined share of up to 60% of local market and 60% of the country's total animal feed output.

Le Ba Lich, chairman of the Vietnam Animal Feed Association, echoed with Duong, saying that domestic animal feed producers are losing at home.

Foreign-invested animal feed producers such as Cargill, CP, Proconco, and New Hope are dominating local market thanks to its profuse capital and effective investment strategies, Lich noted.

As a result, prices of animal feed products are determined by foreign firms, the chairman said. Both Duong and Lich, however, did not give any measures for the situation.

Experts said that prices of animal feed products are around 20% higher than those in the regional countries, where feed prices are often 20% costlier than those of countries which have a developed husbandry sector.