Vietnam top pepper exporter

Vietnam top pepper exporter

Associated press, Hanoi

Vietnam overtook Indonesia to become the world's largest pepper exporter in 2001 with shipments of 56,000 tons, an official said Monday.

However, the country earned just US$90 million from its pepper exports in 2001, much less than the $146 million it received from exporting 37,000 tons of pepper in 2000, the official from the Ministry of Trade said.

Vietnam's average export price for pepper in 2001 was $1,607 per ton, compared with $3,946 per ton in 2000, she said.

The official attributed the slump in world pepper prices to an oversupply. In recent years, Vietnam has rapidly increased its production of several commodities, including pepper, coffee and rice, contributing to world price declines.

All of Vietnam's top nine agricultural exports suffered price declines in 2001, but pepper prices plunged the most, the official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, predicted only a slight recovery in world pepper prices in 2002.

In 2001, Indonesia exported 45,000 tons of pepper, Brazil 34,000 tons, Malaysia 26,000 tons and India 25,000 tons, the official said.

In 2001, Vietnam's export revenues rose 4.5 percent to $15.1 billion, much lower than the government's target of a 16 percent increase to $16.3 billion, largely because of plummeting world prices for Vietnam's agricultural products, she said.

Communist Vietnam began allowing private agriculture about 15 years ago, replacing a disastrous experience with collectivized agriculture that brought the country perilously close to famine.

Vietnam, once a rice importer, is now the world's second largest rice exporter after Thailand, and has come from nowhere to become the world's second largest coffee exporter behind Brazil.

Vietnam began exporting pepper only 10 years ago.