April 26, 2011

Agricultural, aquatic product prices soar in Vietnam's Mekong Delta

Prices of most agricultural and aqua products have rocketed in the Mekong Delta region due to shortage.

Nguyen Van Dao, general director of Go Dang Seafood Joint Stock Company in Tien Giang Province, said on April 21 that the price of Tra fish has set a new record.

Exporters have scrambled to buy the fish at an all-time high price of VND28 (US$0.0013), 300-28,500 per kilogramme, he added.

However, Mr. Dao said, the volume of fish during harvesting was not much. Due to escalating input costs, farmers have not dared to breed more fish.

Due to the severe shortage, Tra fish exporters have been unable to take the initiative to sign export contracts, except those who have their own farms.

Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Soc Trang provinces have continued to see a shortage of tiger shrimps, with prices continuing to rise.

These provinces have faced shrimp shortage because of widespread epidemic diseases in shrimps in the region.

One kilogramme of shrimps loading about 20 pieces costs VND260,000-265,000 (US$12.44-$12.68) and one kilogramme loading 30 pieces of shrimps costs VND190,000-200,000 (US$9.09-$9.57).

In Dong Thap and Tien Giang provinces, traders are boosting the purchase of rice with prices of VND8,200-8,250 (US$0.392-$0.394) per kilogramme of five-percent-broken rice and VND8,100-8,150 (US$0.38-$0.39) per kilogramme of 15-percent-broken rice.