The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development expects to import around 260,000 tonnes of salt to stabilise domestic consumption demand.
Vietnam is blessed with favourable conditions for the development of salt production, with its 3,000-km coast line as well as suitable weather and land, the ministry said. But natural disasters have adversely affected salt production in recent years. Price fluctuations also prompted farmers to give up salt production, leading to an imbalance in supply and demand.
Due to bad weather, salt output in Vietnam was only 800,000 tonnes in 2009, a year-on-year decrease of 5 percent, even though the country’s area for salt production has expanded by more than 16 percent to 14,400 hectares.
Vietnam has imported salt in recent years from 138,000 tonnes in 2007 to about 230,000 tonnes in each of the two most recent years.
The country’s salt consumption demand is currently 1.3 million tonnes a year./.