In previous years, importers often sign long-term contracts to buy cashew nuts for 6-9 months or more. However, this year, the longest order only lasts until the middle of the year, with limited quantities. Consumption demand has not yet shown any positive signs.
DEMAND DECREASES AND EXPORT ORDERS ARE NO LONGER VIBRANT
In 2022, despite the proposal to reduce the export target from 3.8 billion USD to 3.2 billion USD, eventually, the cashew industry only reached more than 3 billion USD. In 2023, this industry set a modest target at 3.1 billion USD, but the situation is forecast not to be positive when consumer demand continues to be gloomy, causing businesses to face many challenges.
Importers are hesitant to buy cashew nut.
This is not a story of an individual enterprise. Mr. Tran Van Hiep, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Cashew Association (VINACAS), said that after Tet holiday, farmers harvested cashew nuts and enterprises started to process raw materials, processing, but the number of contract is quite small.
According to Mr. Hiep, previously, from the beginning of the year, most importers sign contracts to buy cashew nuts in 6 months, even up to 9 months or more. But at the beginning of 2023, the signed contract with the longest time is only until the middle of the year, with limited quantities. In general, importers are hesitant to buy cashew nuts.
Therefore, a representative of VINACAS said that in the coming time, the situation has not been positive for cashew exporters.
RAW MATERIALS ARE SUFFICIENT, BE CAREFUL WHEN BUYING AT HIGH PRICES
VINACAS said that over the years, Vietnamese cashew enterprises have had the habit of massively purchasing raw cashew at the beginning of the crop. This causes an increase in buying, leading the price of cashew nuts to always be at a high level. Besides, due to financial pressure, raw cashew must be immediately put into production and sold to recover capital. Thereby, this causes a state of competition for sale, making the price of cashew nuts unable to increase.
Mr. Nguyen Minh Hoa, Vice Chairman and Head of VINACAS’s Policy Department, said that enterprises should not rush to buy high-priced raw materials. Currently, the world’s raw cashew production is increasing. The inventory in countries is high so there will be no shortage of raw materials.
“Vietnam ranks the first in cashew processing and exporting globally and also the world’s largest importer of raw cashew. However, the current goal is to make a profit from production, not to sell goods, by all means, even suffer losses. Enterprises need to consider the production output, and only buy raw materials when having orders because raw materials account for 85% of the cost of cashew nut production, ” Mr. Hoa said.
The cashew sector is forecast to face many difficulties in 2023, the export target is modest at 3.1 billion USD.
According to Mr. Vu Thai Son, the prediction and evaluation of the market are very important. Currently, the raw cashew nut is mainly imported from Cambodia and Africa, but the ability to analyze and understand the market of many enterprises is not good, so raw cashew nut is purchased at high prices. Therefore, this year, enterprises need to carefully consider buying raw cashew nuts to be more effective for production and business.
Facing many forecasts about difficulties, enterprises believe that the bright signal in 2023 may come from China when this market has removed the Zero-COVID policy.
According to Mr. Ta Quang Huyen, China has a population of nearly 1.5 billion people, and Chinese consumers are also quite easygoing and willing to spend. These are very suitable for Vietnamese cashew products. The potential of this market is very large while cashew nut exports to China only account for about 10% of Vietnam’s total cashew export turnover. Therefore, enterprises can export more to this market./.