Tran Thien Hai, Chairman of VASEP, in the said dispatch, wrote that seafood processors get payment for export consignments in US dollar, while they need VND to buy materials for production. The problem lies in the fact that seafood exporters cannot sell dollars to banks to get VND.

VASEP has urged MARD to work with the State Bank of Vietnam to ask commercial banks to buy dollars from seafood exporters at the exchange rates announced by the State Bank of Vietnam and with no surcharges.

VASEP has also urged MARD to ask the Government to apply the measures on compensating farmers and fishermen for the losses caused by higher fuel prices, so that they can continue going fishing.

VASEP said that MARD should ask the Government not to promulgate the macroeconomic management measures that may cause more difficulties to production and export, and losses to farmers and fishermen, which can push them to bankruptcy.

Currently, many seafood processing companies have a lot of dollars in their coffer, but still have to borrow VND from banks with high interest rates. Meanwhile, the production cost has become higher due to the increased material prices, which have been making businesses suffer loss. A lot of companies still have to maintain production to fulfill the signed contracts.

In the immediate time, VASEP encourages its members to use other foreign currencies like the Euro, pound, Japanese yen and Australian dollar instead of the US dollar. However, this still cannot help settle the problem as banks themselves do not like these foreign currencies

According to VASEP, the input material prices for aquaculture and fishing have increased by 20%, and farmers do not have money for re-investment and production.

Hai from VASEP said that the Government’s policy on keeping the weak dollar has been putting big difficulties for exporters, especially seafood exporters. While the difficulties would not be so serious for other key export items, like footwear and apparel, which use imported materials, the heavy burden has been put on seafood processors’ shoulders, as they have to use domestic materials and pay VND for them.

Source: VietNamNet