U&I Agriculture Corporation (Unifarm) has cooperated with Dole Asia Group to become the exclusive unit in Vietnam to grow and supply bananas to Dole Asia (belonging to Dole Group of USA) for exporting market. The contract has a term of 10 years.
Cooperation for development
Pham Quoc Liem, General Director of Unifram, said that Vietnamese bananas could compete with other products in the export market from other countries such as Ecuador, the Philippines, Indonesia ... But to join the supply chain of Dole Asia, the company has to change completely, must comply with the conditions of food hygiene and safety, minimize the use of chemical drugs and strict comply with cultivation techniques required by Dole Asia. Unifram has invested more than 10 years in hi-tech agriculture in Binh Duong Province, supplying bananas and melons for Japan, Korea...
Unifram's banana products are starting to appear in Asian supermarkets.
According to Mr. Liem, the cooperation with Dole Asia will help Unifram to gain more experiences and technology to continue to expand their high-tech model. He is expecting, with thousands hectare of grapefruit, orange and tangerine, the company’s products would be a part of Dole Asia's supply chain.
Mai Huu Tin, Chairman of Directors’ Board of Truong Thanh Furniture Joint Stock Company, shared, in the current trend of integration, if businesses want to better, they must cooperate with better partners. The cooperation between Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation and Vingroup Corporation to distribute wooden products to the export market worth over VND15,000 billion in five years has helped the company "stand up" after a long unprofitable period. Mr. Tin said that with experiences and potential of Vingroup, Truong Thanh is likely to have more market shares in the EU and US.
To develop the supporting industry
Mr. Tin added that Vietnam's wood industry was ranked in the world’s top 3. The main competitor of domestic wood enterprises is Chinese wood enterprises. However, Chinese furniture is subject to anti-dumping duties in the EU and the US, so businesses are shifting their investment to Vietnam and some other Asian countries. The competitiveness of Vietnamese wood enterprises is weaker than that of Chinese wood enterprises, because they have built their own modern machines and production lines. Meanwhile, most of Vietnam's wood enterprises have to buy expensive machines from the EU.
In 2017, the wood sector contributed more than $7 billion to the country's export turnover. According to Mr. Tin, in order to expand export markets, Vietnam's furniture factories need to be better managed and the State should have more effective policies to develop domestic wood raw materials as well as supporting industries for the timber industry. Truong Thanh now aims to reach the Asian top of production management and service integration from consulting, design to production and installation. The company will also focus more on the domestic market.
Dinh The Hien, an expert, said that supporting technology in Vietnam was still too slow compared with the needs of enterprises. Especially, in Binh Duong province, key export sectors such as garment, footwear and wooden furniture… are facing a shortage of raw materials. According to Mr. Hien, the Government and local authorites should have preferential policies to attract investments in supporting industries. In the near future, when Vietnam loses the advantage of cheap labor, the supporting industry will help domestic enterprises to stand firm in the market and will attract more foreign investments.
Reported by Phung Hieu – Translated by Ngoc Huynh
