Pepper exports from Vietnam, the world’s largest producer, will fall 26 percent to about 100,000 metric tons this year as stockpiles are exhausted, according to Do Ha Nam, chairman of the Vietnam Pepper Association.
We don’t have any stockpiles left, so what we produce this year will be for export, Nam said Monday. Prices will rise slightly due to supply shortages in other countries as well, he said by phone, without giving a specific forecast.
Pepper demand is rising as the global economy recovers from the worst recession since World War II. Floods in Brazil, the third-largest producer, may curb yields, according to a September forecast from A.A. Sayia & Co., a US spice brokerage.
The Southeast Asian nation last year exported a record 135,000 tons, including material drawn from stockpiles held over from previous years, an increase of 50percent from 2008, Nam said. The country earned $356 million from pepper shipments last year, according to the Hanoi-based General Statistics Office.
Vietnam produces about 100,000 tons of pepper every year and exports about 98 percent of that output, he said. The US is Vietnam’s largest pepper market, followed by Germany, according to Nam.
Source: Bloomberg
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