The seminar entitled “Building trade name of Vietnamese cashew” held in Binh Phuoc province on March 21-one of activities in “Viet Nam-Binh Phuoc Golden Cashew Festival 2010” suggests that “For the time being, with 500,000 hectares of cashew plantations, Vietnam ranks first among cashew export countries. In 2009, it has US$1 billion export value. However, building the brand name of Vietnamese cashew has not been cared and attended enough."
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| For the time being, many farmers quit planting cashew trees and move to other plants. |
According to Bui Van Thach, Vice-Chairman of Binh Phuoc provincial People’s Committee, the head of the organization board of the Golden Cashew Festival, to keep its number one position in cahsew export globally, building and keeping brand name of cashew have been considered to be vital. "In Vietnam, the issue of cashew brand name is particularly cared and attended. According to statistics of Bureau of Intelligence Property, now, there haven’t been Geographical Indications registered for products from cashew. In Binh Phuoc alone, a capital of cashew, there are just 4 brand names of cashew registered among 112 brand name registration applications and 71 certificates", says Nguyen Quan, the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology.
According to Nguyen Thai Hoc, the President of the Vietnam Cashew Association, one of reason is that Vietnam has a large number of small cashew manufacturers that can not build a standard process and that distance from cashew growers and manufacturers is huge whereby there have to be many intermediary phases and quality of cashew is not maintained. Cashew growers can not sell their products at a high price.
That poses a problem in which farmers move to plant rubbers and cacao. This causes a paradox that our nation is the largest cashew export in the world and yet it lacks raw cashew material while it is able to meet this demand. As Nguyen Hoc said, for the time being, we have to import 40% of raw cashew material from other countries.
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| Nguyen Quan, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology says “Building brand name of cashews has become a vital issue”. |
Most of administrators, manufacturers and enterprises have agreed that building brand name of cashew must start with enhancement of cashew growers and enterprises’ awareness to ensure that quality of products from cashew can be competitive in markets. Besides, it is necessary to limit intermediary phases. Enterprises have to directly contact farmers by a form of cashew trading floor.
“Cashew Trading Floor is convenient for manufacturers to sign contract long before their production so that they can actively control their production plan and avoid forced price, buyers can be proactive in material for process and quality and supply for exports and export expansion can be ensured”, says Dr. Le Thi Thanh of Ho Chi Minh city University of Economics. At the same time, enterprises must have a standard manufacturing process and there must be a close coordination among four forces, including administrators, manufacturers, enterprises and scientists.
Accordingly, administrators and planners have to create preferred investment strategies for cashew. Cashew enterprises have to invest in technology and be active in finding markets. Scientists have to study and transfer technical and scientific advances for cashew productivity and quality enhancement to farmers and technology to process cashew into various products.
Reported by T.Lien, translated by Hoai Thu
