Some 38 Vietnamese cashew nut exporters are confronting a possible lawsuit by a British law company because they refused to deliver goods as signed contracts, the Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper reported on May 15.
The British Clyde & Co Law Co, authorized by several importers, has sent a notice to Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, complaining about 38 Vietnamese cashew exporters which did not deliver cashew nuts to them, causing a loss of US$9.7 million.
According to a report by the Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacas), as of late April 2008, Vietnamese companies signed contracts to export around 6,000 containers of cashew nuts totaling US$495 million.
The companies have delivered 2,700 containers worth US$251 million and are shipping the remainder.
However, local companies did not want to ship some 700 containers of the remainder valued at US$50 million because their value is lower than input cost. If they ship the containers, they will lose around US$11 million, Vinacas said at the meeting May 13 with the Ministry of Agriculture and Development and Industry and Trade to address the issue.
At the meeting, Vietnamese companies admitted their tardiness in delivering cashew nuts, but noting that the figure provided by the Clyde & Co Law Co. is not correct.
Local companies blamed the delivery delay for production cost increasing by 40 per cent, local banks’ limited loan and labor shortage.
However, Vinacas said several companies did not abide by signed contract on purpose, ignoring the possible lawsuit warned by the British company.
Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Thanh Bien said the cashew nut exporters’ delivery delay, to some extent, harmed prestige of local cashew industry in particular, and Vietnam, in general, which has spent a lot of money in trade promotion, noting that Britain is now one of strategic partners of Vietnam.
Bien asked Vinacas and relevant bodies to pay attention to bring out the Clyde & Co.’s figure absolve true exporters from disreputableness.
Luong Le Phuong, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development said that he has proposed the Government to slash import tax on raw cashew down to 0 per cent from current 5 per cent. (Ho Chi Minh City Law)
Vietnamese
