VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese farmers have been warned that Chinese businesses might play nasty tricks in an attempt to control the Vietnamese pepper market.

Director of the Dak Lak provincial Industry and Trade Department Pham Thai said Chinese businessmen have come to the locality seeking to buy pepper at the high prices of VND190,000-195,000 per kilo, higher than the market price of VND180,000.

Nguyen Dao Chi, deputy head of the Dak Lak provincial Market Control Sub-department, has also alerted farmers of the danger. 

“It may happen that Chinese businessmen will refuse to buy pepper when big amounts of pepper are collected and carried to the border areas,” he said. “This would cause big losses to farmers and harm the domestic market.”

Chi stressed that farmers should learn a lesson from what is happening with watermelon. 

Hundreds of trucks carrying watermelon came to the border area, but the prices unexpectedly fell and Vietnamese businessmen had to throw the fruit away.

In the past, Chinese businessmen once tried to collect the roots of pepper trees at high prices in the Central Highlands. 

This prompted farmers to uproot trees to sell to the businessmen. However, they later disappeared, leaving the uprooted trees unsold.

Deputy General Director of the General Department of Customs Nguyen Duong Thai said at a press conference on April 7 that a large volume of fruit was stuck at the border gate.

He said that Vietnamese businesses are at a disadvantage when exporting farm produce across the border gate. High risks always exist in trade deals made in accordance with verbal agreements.

In fact, Vietnamese farmers have suffered many times from the tricks played by Chinese businessmen.

Chinese visit some areas trying to collect farm produce at high prices. They contact Vietnamese merchants and order farm produce in large quantities, promising to come back later to get deliveries. However, they never return, which makes it difficult to sell farm produce collected by Vietnamese merchants.

More recently, banana growers in Phu Yen province have become the victims of Chinese businessmen. At first, the businessmen promised to buy bananas at VND12,000 per kilo, but did not come back to collect bananas. As a result, the banana price dropped dramatically.

Nguyen Dinh Bich, a renowned expert from the Trade Institute, said Chinese businessmen have been trying to distort the domestic market by creating artificial demand. As the demand does not exist in reality, the farm produce prices later fell dramatically, thus making Vietnamese suffer.

Le Dang Doanh, a renowned economist, has called on state agencies to conduct surveys and report about the Chinese businessmen’s behaviors and take actions to stop the problems.

Doanh noted that Chinese conduct this behavior only in Vietnam.

Dat Viet