CFC - Shining Vietnamese Virtues in Integration Era

Despite facing numerous challenges and hardships during 40 years of construction and development (1977 - 2017), Can Tho Fertiliser & Chemical Joint Stock Company (CFC) has quickly become a leading manufacturer and trader of fertilisers, chemicals and animal feeds in Vietnam and ASEAN markets.

Active and creative to overcome hardships
A company’s brand is always built on product quality. Over 40 years of ongoing creativity, intensive investment and application of scientific and technological advances to production, CFC has launched many kinds of high quality fertilisers such as Co Bay NPK fertiliser, Co Bay microorganism fertiliser, ZEO, OPLUS and Zeolite detergents, Co Bay animal feeds and fish feeds. The products are trusted and used by consumers throughout the country.

To get sweet fruits today, CFC has undergone many tough development stages. 1998 marked a breakthrough milestone of CFC when it was the pioneer of the Vietnamese fertiliser industry to manufacture NPK fertilisers by steam granulation method. At the same time, CFC continued to develop Co Bay Hi-End fertiliser lines, strong organic fertilisers and Zeolite 4A fertilisers. Later on, CFC continued to assert its internal strength and market position with a lot of investment decisions to expand production capacity and enhance competitiveness on the market: Building strong organic fertiliser plant with a yearly production capacity of 40,000 tonnes in 2008, building a new NPK F3 steam and urea liquefaction factory with a yearly production capacity of 60,000 tonnes in 2013. Particularly sensitive to the market development, CFC stepped into new potential fields such as manufacturing and trading environmental treatment agents, animal feeds and fish feeds which have initially brought in significant profit to the company.

Not only meeting domestic market demands, CFC also exports fertilisers to foreign markets. Co Bay NPK fertilisers, Co Bay organic micro fertilisers, ZEO, OPLUS and Zeolite detergents, Co Bay animal feeds and fish feeds are widely distributed across the country by over 120 major distributors.

Speaking of the company's export, President and CEO - Nguyen Van Hao said, CFC fertilisers have been exported to ASEAN countries, particularly Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Indonesia. "These are CFC's traditional export markets and we have built a loyal customer base there. In 2016 and 2017, CFC has been developing new potential export markets like Japan, Australia and specially Africa. The company earns over US$40 million a year from exports," he added.

Ongoing renovation and enhancing competitiveness
In order to assert and strongly develop the brand in domestic and international markets, the CFC leadership has actively organised many good farmers' delegations in the company’s main markets to visit the company’s fertiliser production lines, thus further winning their absolute trust in CFC brand. In addition, with the operating principle of “Accompanying farmers”, CFC demonstrated and tested crop varieties to compare productivity and output to reduce production costs for farmers and built up a strong agriculturist force to advise farmers. Furthermore, the CFC Board of Directors has endeavoured to reduce intermediaries to cut production costs and bring its Co Bay brand closer to farmers. As a result, CFC enjoyed an export growth of 30 per cent and a domestic consumption growth of 20 per cent in the first six months of 2017.

As for detergents, CFC’s sales dropped sharply due to fierce competition from multinational corporations. To stabilise chemical business in general and detergent business in particular, CFC separated detergent business from chemical business to upgrade technology, product quality, design, packaging and flexible business methods. As a result, CFC’s new detergents such as ZEO and OPLUS gradually replaced obsolete products such as PANO to achieve a 30 - 50 per cent revenue growth a year.

In the 2017 - 2020 period, CFC will invest more in machinery and equipment to scale up production capacity to meet increasing market demands. Specifically, as for NPK fertilisers, the company will transform steam technology to chemical reaction technology in fertiliser production to increase F3 fertiliser production capacity from 60,000 tonnes to 90,000 tonnes a year to reduce product costs and increase fertiliser quality.

Regarding washing powders, CFC is investing in coal-fired furnaces to raise detergent output and lower production costs to gradually enhance its detergent competitiveness and facilitate market development.

With respect to micro-organic fertilisers, CFC is cooperating with the Mekong Delta Rice Research Institute and leading experts to study best yeasts for specific soil and crops to prevent relatively universal pathogens on industrial crops and fruit trees such as coffee and durian. “Today, with higher living standards, Vietnamese people have a higher demand for organic foods. As a leading fertiliser producer, CFC has set great store by organic fertiliser production. With the superior quality, our organic fertilisers are increasingly used by farmers in the Mekong Delta and the Central Highlands. Organic fertiliser sales grow 130 per cent every year,” Mr Hao said.

Hoang Lam