Viet Nam’s oilseed production continues to fall well below demand from the food industry and the livestock and aquaculture feed sectors due to low yield and strong competition from other field crops, namely corn.
Imports of soybeans in 2013 were 1.26 MMT, a drop of 13.7 per cent from the previous year due to lower than expected crushing demand.
In MY 2012/13, US soybean exports to Viet Nam were 556 thousand metric tons (TMT), a drop of 3.7 per cent from the previous year, but an increase of 145 per cent over the 2011 level due to rising demand from the two soybean crushing facilities, and from the food and feed industries.
US soybean export share has grown to 45 per cent in MY 2013/14, more than double US market share in 2010/11.
Although Viet Nam started domestically producing SBM on an industrial scale in 2011, Viet Nam continues to import the majority of the SBM consumed to offset the protein shortage in the country and meet the growing demand of the animal and aquaculture feed industries.
In MY 2012/13, Viet Nam imported about 2.97 MMT of SBM, an increase of 19 per cent over the previous year due to increasing demand for protein feed and reduced domestic crush.
In 2013, US SBM exports increased to 376 TMT, a significant increase of 158 per cent over the previous year. A large part of this growth was an increase in US soy flour exports to Viet Nam.
Post forecasts 2014 and 2015 total SBM imports to increase to 3.1 and 3.2 MMT, respectively, as demand from the feed industry rebounds from the economic slowdown.
Viet Nam continues to rely heavily on imported refined oil to meet consumer demand, although domestically produced crude soybean oil has been widely available in the country since 2011.
In 2013, Viet Nam produced about 193 TMT of crude soy oil from commercial crushing facilities, but continued to import an estimated 710 TMT of crude and refined vegetable oils to meet local consumption and export demand.
In 2013, refined vegetable oil imports were at 634 TMT, a slight drop from the previous year, and crude vegetable oil imports increased 17 per cent over the year ago due to the lower availability of domestic crude soy oil caused by lower crush.
Refined vegetable oil imports accounted for 89 per cent of total imported vegetable oils. Post forecasts that total vegetable oil imports in 2014 will remain in the 700-740 TMT range. Growth in imports will be slowed due to the rise in locally produced soybean oil.
Viet Nam’s exports of both refined and crude vegetable oils skyrocketed in 2013 reaching an estimated 154 TMT of all types of vegetable oils, of which crude soy oil accounted for 48 per cent, refined soy oil accounted for 14 per cent and palm and other vegetable oils accounted for 38 per cent.
Post estimates soy oil exports at 90 TMT in both MY 2013/2014 and MY2014/2015.
