Fruits, meats buck trend of surging prices

While the prices of many consumer goods are rising sharply, some have bucked the trend as their supply remains strong while demand, especially for exports, is weak. Looking for a place to eat dinner at a traditional market, Huong, a garment worker in Tan Binh District, said it is fortunate that the price of pork, popular among most Vietnamese families, has fallen slightly.

This has relieved some of the financial pressure on low-income workers like her as the prices of many goods have been rising.

Imported beef prices are down 10-20 percent, and farmed fish prices have fallen even more sharply.

A recent survey found that the prices of many agricultural, fishery and livestock products have dropped, with most of them seeing double-digit declines.

“I suffered heavy losses as production costs doubled from last year but prices are lower”.An, who has a jackfruit orchard in the southern province of Long An, said merchants have halved their buying price and even stopped buying due to high transport costs and export challenges.

Hung, a farmer in the central coastal province of Binh Thuan, said several tonnes of dragon fruits have ripened on his farm but there are no buyers.

Citing export issues, merchants buy the fruit in small quantities at around VND2,000 per kilogram (8.7 US cents).

Pham Thanh Mai, an agricultural products trader in the Central Highlands, said difficulties with exports are the main reason for the price drops.

“Usually off-season fruits always fetch higher prices because of limited supply. Prices have now fallen sharply since demand is lower as fruits cannot be exported”.

As of March 21, around 1,000 trucks remained stranded at at border gates with China in the northern province of Lang Son, 660 of them laden with fresh fruits. According to Vietnam Customs, 80 percent of the country’s dragon fruit is exported to China. But after that country imposed stringent Covid-19 safety measures, Vietnam’s exports have stalled, causing demand for many fruits to dry up.

Le Xuan Huy, deputy director of leading pork producer CP Vietnam, said meat prices have dropped generally due to higher supply and fall in demand to 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels.