VnnNews – Export revenue from construction materials in the last few years has been so low that statistics have not even been kept.
 |
Economists have given warnings about the oversupply of many types of construction materials over the last year, from glass, ceramic bricks to cement and steel.
Associations have also admitted that many construction material industries are facing the excess of output over sale, while they have to compete fiercely with imports.
According to the Vietnam Cement Association,
According to the Vietnam Steel Association, the steel demand for 2009-2010 is about four million tonnes, while the total designed capacity has reached 7 million tonnes. As for ashlar facing brick production, there are now some 60 producers, who can churn out 200 million square metres per annum, while the total demand is just 150 million square metres.
Overproduction has forced many enterprises to take measures to reduce production costs and seek new markets. They have automatically thought of exporting products to other countries which are believed to lack construction materials.
However, an official from the Vietnam Construction Material Association said that exports in the last five years have not reached one billion dollars. Moreover, the exports have been made mainly by foreign-invested enterprises. Meanwhile, Vietnamese enterprises still have to import materials from other countries to make products domestically and they can only earn money from processing work.
Explaining the modest exports, the official said that investment in construction material production is high, which makes production costs 15-20 percent higher than the average level in the world. Meanwhile, Vietnamese enterprises have to pay more for transport fees for construction materials than those in many other countries.
Besides, the official said, Vietnamese enterprises never cooperate with one another. In the scramble for foreign partners, many enterprises offer low sale prices, which creates difficulties for others in negotiating with foreign partners.
Cement producers once thought of exporting products to
Domestic producers also fear that they may meet risks in payment, since foreign partners always ask for the mode of deferred payment.
Some producers said that they have received invites for cooperation for from African importers. However, they will not export products to the countries under the official channel as it is said to be very risky.
Ceramics and porcelain items are the only category of products which appear in the statistics for exports in the first eight months of the year of the General Statistics Office and it was listed among the categories of products with the sharpest export revenue decreases.
In August, the export revenue of the category of products was $18 million, down by $1 million over the previous month. The export revenue was $167 million in the first eight months of the year, down by 27.7 percent over the same period of 2008.
The Ministry of Construction has called on enterprises and associations to offer suggestions to boost exports, while associations have anonymously asked for a halt to licencing new projects to curb over-production.
The construction material association has suggested the Government work with other countries on the slashing of import tariffs and consider subsidising transport fees for construction material exports.
Meanwhile, experts say that enterprises themselves will play the most important role and decide whether they can export products. They have cited Vicostone under Vinaconex as an example. At first, the company planned to make products to serve the construction works invested in by Vinaconex. However, it faced a lot of difficulties in the first stage of operation: domestic sources were poor and had low quality, production costs were high and products could not meet the requirements. However, Vicostone has decided to shift to target export markets instead of domestic consumption.
VietNamNet/DTCK
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
