A customer at a supermarket. Việt Nam imports live hogs to reduce pork prices on the domestic market. — Photo tienphong.vn

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has allowed local businesses for the first time to import live hogs to reduce pork prices in the domestic market.

On Thursday, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phùng Đức Tiến said that the reasons behind the import permission are the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic and high price of live hog on the domestic market, causing an increase of the consumer price index.

"Việt Nam may import live hogs from Thailand. The import will be strictly controlled to avoid mass imports, negatively affecting the domestic market," Tiến said.

Thailand has an advanced pig breeding industry and the import process is strictly controlled from the exporting country to Việt Nam. The live hogs would be isolated and quarantined according to the current regulations, he said.

According to MARD, the Department of Animal Health would coordinate with importing enterprises to discuss with authorities of the exporting country about risks in import process and agreements on veterinary sanitary conditions and export quarantine certificate.

Meanwhile, the local enterprises importing live hogs must comply with the current regulations on imports quarantine to ensure safety in term of disease for domestic cattle.

The ministry would also hold festivals for chicken and tra fish consumption to encourage consumers to use other kinds of meat, Tiến said.

Besides importing live hogs, many local businesses have also increased the import of piglets for reproduction of pig herds in the domestic market, according to the ministry. From the beginning of this year until now, the enterprises imported 110,000 piglets. They have plans to continue importing 10,000 piglets next month.

The import of piglets this year, together with the available piglets on the domestic market at present, are expected to ensure enough piglets for pig re-production during the 2020-24 period, according to the ministry.

MARD said it would create the most favourable conditions to increase the import of piglets, including no import quotas.

Pork price

The price of live hog on Friday increased again nationwide after only one day of reduction, reported vietnambiz.vn, of which the central and Central Highlands regions had the highest growth to nearly VNĐ100,000 per kilo.

In the northern Yên Bái, Lào Cai and Phú Thọ provinces, the price of live hog inched up slightly VNĐ1,000 per kilo to VNĐ98,000 compared to the previous day.

This price in Hà Nội rose by VNĐ2,000 per kilo to the record high of VNĐ100,000 per kilo.

Pork traders said it is difficult to buy live hogs with a price of about VNĐ70,000 kilo as the Government expected due to low supply of hogs on the domestic market.

Specifically, the price in Lâm Đồng Province increased by VNĐ1,000 per kilo the highest level of VNĐ99,000 on Friday.

Meanwhile, Bình Thuận Province had the largest growth of VNĐ4,000 per kilo of live hog to VNĐ97,000. Ninh Thuận Province had the lowest price at VNĐ90,000 per kilo.

The southern region had maintained stability in live hog price at VNĐ95,000-100,000 per kilo on Friday.

However, Long An was the only province to have an increase of VNĐ3,000 per kilo of live hog to the regional record high at VNĐ100,000

The Vissan pork prices on Friday in HCM City were between from VNĐ63,000 to VNĐ252,000 per kilo, down VNĐ7,000-28,000 compared to the previous day depending on kinds of pork. Those prices in other provinces and cities had a reduction of VNĐ6,800 to VNĐ26,900 per kilo to VNĐ61,200-242,100.

Meat Deli's chilled meat prices at Vinmart supertmarket were unchanged at VNĐ169,900-286,900 per kilo.

The prices for all kinds of pork at traditional markets in Hà Nội such as Hôm, Bách Khoa, Kim Liên, Thành Công and Phùng Khoang were at high levels from VNĐ170,000 to VNĐ220,000 per kilo, an increase of VNĐ10,000 compared to the prices two days ago. — VNS