August 22, 2012

Vietnam's January-July animal feed imports down 5.5%

In the first seven months of this year, Vietnam spent US$1.29 billion on animal feed imports and materials, falling 5.5% on year.

The figure includes US$219 worth of the imports in July, down 12.5% from the previous month, the General Department of Customs under the Ministry of Finance said.

Due to insufficient local production of materials used in animal feed production, Vietnam has to import huge volume of soy and soymeal, corn, fish powder and other components needed in the industry.

In 2011, the country imported 8.2 million tonnes of materials for animal feed production, including 870,000 tonnes of corn, 570,000 tonnes of bran, 2.3 million tonnes of wheat, 4.1 million tonnes of fish powder, soy products and shrimp by-products, as well as 289,000 tonnes of additives.

Thanks to the increased volume of imported materials, Vietnam's processing plants produced 11.5 million tonnes of animal feed last year, compared to 10.6 million tonnes in 2010.