Despite the strong impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the cashew industry in Vietnam has maintained the production and export of cashew nuts with a high growth rate compared to the same period in 2019.

Pham Van Cong, VINACAS Chairman,said the Vietnamese cashew industry is facing new opportunities but also many new challenges. The increasingly deep integration of Vietnam with the world brings opportunities for the cashew industry to expand markets, develop production and business. But with that, competition is getting fiercer because Vietnam is part of the global "playing field" and all countries and businesses across the world make efforts to develop. This requires the cashew industry and each business to have a new vision, a new mindset and a new way to develop steadily.In the framework of the programme to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Vietnam Cashew Association (VINACAS), on November 23, VINACAS held a seminar and discussed opportunities and challenges in cashew production, processing and trading.

Cong also acknowledged that, despite having a great reputation and a large market, Vietnam’s cashew kernels are still raw materials for a very large market which are deeply processed products with high added value that Vietnam's cashew industry has only just begun to approach. This puts Vietnam's cashew industry in front of a great choice: continuing to invest in technology and innovating equipment to maintain the position of cashew export or both investing in cashew while concentrating resources for institutional deep development, enhancing Vietnam's position in the global value chain.

Besides, Vietnam’s cashew nuts, despite having good quality, only meet a very small part for processing; the life of cashew farmers still has many difficulties.

To contribute to the cashew industry in taking advantage of opportunities, advantages and overcoming difficulties, VINACAS is working to propose to the Government "Strategy for the development of Vietnam's cashew industry in a new situation". This will include proposing State mechanisms and policies to strongly develop deep processing, to meet the diverse needs of the world market and win a goodposition in the global value chain. Along with that is to develop material areas in the direction of quality and efficiency, creating an initiative in quality raw materials for processing.

Regarding cashew import and export situation from the beginning of the year up to now, VINACAS informed that by the end of October, Vietnam's raw cashew imports reached nearly 1.4 million tonnes, equivalent to a turnover of US$1.54 billion, down by 3% in amount and more than 13% in value over the same period in 2019. The reason is that the average price of imported raw cashew nuts in the 10 months of 2020 has decreased by nearly 11% from the same period last year, at US$1,187. Compared with the plan set out for 2020, the cashew industry has exceeded 6% of the plan in terms of the volume of imported cashews and nearly 8% in turnover.

Regarding exports, by the end of October, the cashew industry exported 422,671 tonnes, up 12% over the same period in 2019.However, the turnover decreased by 3% to US$2.63 billion. Accordingly, the price of cashew exports has decreased by nearly 14% in the past 10 months, falling to US$6,288. Compared to the plan, the cashew industry has reached 94% in volume and more than 82% in cashew kernel export turnover.

Experts say the cashew and raw cashew market in the near future will be stable because the supply of kernels in Vietnam is not much and demand for raw cashew is still very high. However, because the price of raw cashew is not balanced with the price of cashew kernel, processors are very cautious when buying raw cashew.