31 Aug 2012 Intellasia Finance Vietnam - Hong Kong Business ...

BUSINESS
Vietnam finance & business 31 August 2012
Shipping fees to
increase despite low
demands
Enterprises in Danang
lukewarm to banks'
capital offer
tumbling and this is pushing up the prices as a result.
For example, the import price of soya bean meal now has shot up to $690 a tonne from
the $450 in May, while local bran prices have also jumped from VND5,000 a kilo to
VND6,400 and fish powder prices have marked up about 25 percent in the local market.
Soya bean meal, rice bran and fish powder are the three main ingredients for animal
feed production.
"Higher animal feed prices plus other expenses will pull the production cost of tra fish
up by at least 20 percent if farmers and companies begin farming at this time," Minh
stressed.
He urged both farmers and firms to take prudent consideration when investing in tra
fish farming these days as the export rice cannot keep up with input costs increases.
If one kilo of tra fish is priced at between some VND27,000 to VND28,000, the export
price of tra fish fillets should be adjusted up to over $3 a kilo. But it is difficult to revise
up prices due to slowing demands from the European market, not to mention the current
abundant supplies of other seafood products.
According to an animal feed distributor in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap,
the price of animal feed for aquatic farming has risen thrice this month, with a combined
increase of VND1,000 per kilo. In the meantime, the offering price of tra fish has
only inched up since early last week as recorded by a sales officer of a trading company.
"Foreign customers are reportedly cautious about the mild price revision and whitemeat
tra fish shipments bound for the US market now fluctuate from $2.6 to $2.9 a kilo
only," he added.
http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/Home/business/trade/25323/
31/AUG/2012 INTELLASIA | SAIGON TIMES DAILY
Although weak purchasing power in the European Union (EU) market has hurt export
and import activities, many shipping companies have announced to raise fees in September
following a rise early this month.
According to a representative of freight forwarder HL Cargo, some shipping enterprises
including CSCL, K-Line, Hapag-Lloyd and NYK have plans to raise charges on
routes between Asia and the EU to compensate for rising material and fuel costs, regardless
of falling goods volumes on the routes.
Goods exports to the EU have declined steadily over the past months due to falling demands
on the market.
According to Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the
debt crisis in Europe is the main cause for the slump in Vietnam's seafood exports to
the EU since early this year. In the first quarter, seafood exports to the market dropped
7.9 percent year-on-year while the second quarter reported a decline of 15.5 percent.
The EU in the second quarter dropped from the first to the second position among key
seafood importers of Vietnam's seafood. The buying power from the EU has yet to improve
so far, VASEP said.
Early this month, MSC and Hapag-Lloyd imposed peak season surcharge of $350 per
twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEU). Hapag-Lloyd besides extending peak season surcharge
also imposed general rate increase of $250 a TEU from August 15.
http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/Home/business/other/25324/
31/AUG/2012 INTELLASIA | SAIGON TIMES DAILY
Not a single enterprise attended a conference on interest rates and capital access held
in Danang City on Tuesday despite the organiser had sent scores of invitation letters
to them, a phenomenon explained by a local official as the business circle's disbelief in
banks' promises.
Phung Tan Viet, vice chair of Danang City, raised the question whether enterprises
were no longer confident in lip services from banks as the interest rate remains preventively
high despite repeated call for helps from them.
The conference, titled "Interest rate policy and capital access for enterprises in the Cen-
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