However, in the recent time, the high foreign currency exchange has caused more difficulties for enterprises.

The exchange rate of USD which has increased recently helps export enterprises increase the profit because the money increases from tens to hundreds VND. Thus, enterprises have made great effort to find orders in the last months of the year to make use of this chance in a difficult year. However, for enterprises which import materials, the increase in value of USD causes great affect to their business. The reason is that in signed contracts, enterprises do not include the factor that USD will increase. Mr Tran Van Dung, director of Basefood says: domestic fishing production is low so enterprises of processing seafood have to import materials from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, Chile… to ensure the supply for customers. The USD exchange rate forces enterprises to face more expenditure and increase the petrol price to 1,500- 2,000 tonnes material such as: fish, shrimp, squid, octopus… with the import price which is 15-20% higher than the buying price in our country. During the situation of increasing USD, import material is more difficult because almost all import materials have to be paid in USD.

Besides, enterprises  have great difficulties in buying foreign currencies because the source of foreign currencies in the country is quite rare. Many enterprises of processing seafood says that buying USD in the end of the year to trade is difficult. “ The supply from commercial banks is not enough, enterprises were forced to buy in the free market. Meanwhile the price in banks and the market often differentiate 15-20%. Furthermore, buying in the market cause difficulties in document” owner of an enterprises of processing enterprises says. Mr Tran Van Dung adds: “ import and then export will bring foreign currency but it makes the circling capital slow. Sometimes import at the time of high currency rate, when the currency comes, the rate is low and enterprises suffer loss.” Besides, the situation of lacking materials causes risks for enterprises which cannot complete contracts. Thus, sometimes, enterprises have to buy materials at high price to keep prestige for customer.

Facing such difficulties, enterprises of processing seafood have cut expenditure, minimize the manufacturing price to decrease the product price. Some enterprises say that there are some customers who sympathize and share the difficulties with enterprises  when they do not force enterprises to compensate contract and agree to increase some prices in the contract. However, this is not a firm foundation for enterprises. The importance issue is to control the domestic material and limit import from foreign countries.

In 2008, the whole province just had 7 million USD import seafood materials but in the first 11 months of this year, this number has been 47 million USD. It is expected that at the end of the year, imported seafood will reach 64.8 million USD. Import enterprises from 3 now increases to 7 such as: Basefood has imported 12 million USD( Export value is million USD) Mai Linh has imported 15 million USD ( export 20 million USD), Hai Viet imports all materials.

Thanh Nga

Source: BR-VT Newspaper

Translated by Vietfish Community