>> Importing salt sheds light on key issues

>> A salty subject

About 40,000 tonnes of low-quality salt remains to be sold, leaving salt farmers in Ho Chi Minh City extremely worried, said Doan Van Son, Vice Chairman of People’s Committee of Can Gio District, Ho Chi Minh City.

Despite the substantial availability of the low-quality salt, high quality supply is virtually all gone.

Vietnam Northern Food Corporation (Vinafood 1) buys salt which was produced using traditional methods for VND750 ($0.038) per kilogram and salt which was produced using high technology at VND800 ($0.041) per kilogram in this district.

High quality salt, preferred for purchase by Vinafood 1, is under limited supply at this time and the company will not buy the lower grade salt.

According to Son, the amount of high-quality salt is limited because farmers do not make much profit if they sell it to state run cooperatives so they prefer to sell it to private companies leaving only lower quality salt remaining.

Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that in the future the department would propose the People’s Committee of the city to build a national salt reservation warehouse in Ly Nhon Commune, Can Gio District with a capacity of 10,000-20,000 tonnes of salt.

In addition, the department also requested the Ministry of Finance provide early guidelines on lending interest rate reductions for farmers here so they will have more favourable conditions to prepare for the coming salt season.

By 2020, all farmers in Can Gio District will apply high technology methods to produce salt.