Viet Nam has paid US$2.09 billion to import raw materials for animal feed production in the first eight months, up 41.1 per cent year on year.— File Photo

HA NOI (Biz Hub)— Viet Nam has paid US$2.09 billion to import raw materials for animal feed production in the first eight months, up 41.1 per cent year on year.

Key imports are corn (1.34 million tonnes) and soy bean (897,000 tonnes). Materials are mostly sourced from Argentina (25.6 per cent), India (14.6 per cent), US (14.5 per cent), followed by Italy, Thailand and China.

Mai Van Chung, purchasing director of the Japfa Cornfeed Viet Nam Ltd Co, said the firm has signed a contract to import 80,000 tonnes of corn for the production of animal feed by March 2014.

Chung said that Japfa needs at least 16,000-17,000 tonnes of corn every month. The company used to import sufficient volume for a certain period but at the present time, they import a bigger volume to take advantage of the very cheap prices of corn on the South American market.

The director also said that the company preferred imports of superior quality with a much lower humidity rate than locally-processed corn.

The imported corn prices from Argentina and Brazil were about $310-320 per tonne in June but the price has now dropped to $245-250, lower than the local price of $295 per tonne (quoted in Son La province).

In fact, raw material prices for animal feed production are falling on the global market but are at a standstills high in Vietnam, disinteresting domestic animal feed producers.

Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Animal Feed Association Nguyen Duc Binh said that local manufacturers were still processing high-value imported materials and the output prices would bear a certain delay on the way down.

Binh said that the price of local animal feed might fall next month, at a modest space of 5 per cent against the current price. —VNS