Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 8.2 Area, yield, and output of rice, by region, 2002
Area in rice
Rice yield
Rice output
Region
(thousand hectares)
(tons per hectare)
(thousand tons)
Red River Delta
1,197
5.59
6,685
North Eastern
563
4.14
2,329
North Western
141
3.21
452
Central Northern Coast
700
4.48
3,139
Central Southern Coast
400
4.27
1,705
Highland
186
3.28
610
South Eastern
486
3.43
1,666
Mekong Delta
3,814
4.58
17,478
Vietnam
7,485
4.55
34,064
SOURCE : Government of Vietnam (2000a).
market economy while traders learn arbitrage skills and the private sector evolves.
This line of reasoning is probably one of the justifications for the presence of
SOEs in the early years of reforms, but their continued presence with monop-
oly power in some areas can hinder development of private markets. In the next
two subsections, we analyze the market share of each type of agent to assess
the market power of the SOEs in Vietnamese rice markets.
The Marketing Chain
The reforms in the 1980s provided tremendous incentives to the Vietnamese to
engage in rice trading, and many adopted it as a means of livelihood. A typical
diagram of the marketing chain in the country now looks similar to many other
Asian countries with a parastatal presence (Figure 8.2). All types of private mar-
ket agents—retailers, assemblers, millers, and wholesalers—operate to procure,
store, and distribute rice throughout the country. However, a closer scrutiny in-
dicates that SOEs dominate both domestic and international markets.
Domestic Markets
Although SOEs have a large market share, they are not directly involved in buy-
ing from the farmers or selling to the consumers—a function commonly per-
formed by the parastatals in other Asian countries to stabilize prices. Procure-
ment is carried out through other market agents, such as wholesalers,
assemblers, and millers. A study by the Ministry of Rural Development, con-
ducted in 1999, indicate that SOEs are the largest buyer from wholesalers and
millers, accounting for 40.51 and 81.98 percent of their total sales, respectively
(Table 8.3). By contrast, retailers, farmers, and consumers did not seem to have
access to SOEs for the buying and selling of their rice in 1999.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search