Industry and Trade News May 26: Rice export prices stable at the beginning of the week

On May 26, the press reported a lot of information related to the Industry and Trade sector. The Industry and Trade Newspaper would like to review some notable information.

Energy sector

The Government E-newspaper published: "Energizing the project to strengthen power security for Thai Binh province"

On May 26, the National Power Transmission Corporation (EVNNPT), the Northern Power Project Management Board (NPMB) coordinated with relevant units to energize the 220kV Vu Thu transformer station project and connecting lines.

The Vu Thu 220kV Transformer Station Project is located in Tam Quang Commune, Vu Thu District, Thai Binh Province. The connecting line passes through Tam Quang, Dung Nghia, Minh Khai and Viet Hung Communes, Vu Thu District. The main scale of the project to build a new 220/110/22kV transformer station includes a 250MVA transformer, and a new 220kV 4-circuit connecting line about 1.9km long.

The project was approved by the Investor Acceptance Council at the end of April 2025 to be energized. After being put into operation, the project will receive 220kV electricity from the national grid and from Thai Binh Thermal Power Plant to supply 110kV electricity to the southern region of Thai Binh province, including Vu Thu district, Thai Binh city and neighboring areas, meeting the growing electricity demand of Thai Binh province and the region. In addition, the project also helps reduce power loss in the transmission grid, strengthen regional power system connectivity, improve safety, reliability and stability when operating regional and national power systems.

Completing the project at this time is a practical action of NPMB to welcome the success of the 4th EVNNPT Party Congress, towards welcoming the 4th EVN Party Congress, term 2025 - 2030.

Import and export sector

Vietnamplus.vn website reported: " Cassava export - new 'trump card' for Vietnam's agriculture ?"

To clearly define the position of cassava, for the first time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has issued a Project for sustainable development of the cassava industry to 2030, with a vision to 2050. Currently, there are over 40 cassava growing provinces nationwide, concentrated in 5 key regions including the Northern Midlands and Mountains, North Central Coast, South Central Coast, Central Highlands and Southeast, accounting for 98% of the country's cassava area and output. The varieties currently grown are KM94, KM 140, KM 419, KM 505, HLS-11, local varieties and mosaic disease-resistant cassava varieties announced for circulation are: HN1, HN3, HN5. The total cassava output nationwide reached 10.4 million tons, of which the average yield reached 20.4 tons/ha. Provinces with high productivity are Tay Ninh (33.3 tons/ha), Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau (25-27 tons/ha)...

Mr. Hoang Trung, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment, said that in order to clearly position the position of cassava, for the first time the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (now the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment) issued the Project on sustainable development of the cassava industry until 2030, with a vision to 2050. The project has identified the development orientations of the cassava industry until 2030 and proposed comprehensive solutions to implement the project's objectives. The cassava growing area is maintained at 480,000 - 510,000 hectares, of which the area using quality-assured varieties accounts for 40 - 50%, the output of fresh tubers reaches 11.5 - 12.5 million tons; the total capacity of processing factories reaches 12 - 14.2 million tons of fresh tubers/year; the export turnover reaches 1.8 - 2 billion USD/year.

Hanoi Moi Newspaper published information: "At the beginning of the week, rice export prices are stable"

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, rice prices on May 26 in the Mekong Delta region fluctuated little, trading was slow, and rice and fresh paddy products were stable compared to the weekend. For the export market, Vietnam's rice export prices remained unchanged compared to the weekend. According to the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), currently 5% standard rice is at 397 USD/ton; 25% broken rice is at 368 USD/ton; 100% broken rice is at 325 USD/ton.

Export rice prices on May 26 recorded stability. Photo: Do ​​Phong

E-commerce sector

The Laborer Electronic Newspaper published the news: "VCCI warns of risks from tax exemption for imported goods via e-commerce"

The Vietnam Federation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has just sent a document to the Ministry of Finance to comment on the draft Decree regulating customs management of exported and imported goods traded via e-commerce. In particular, VCCI noted that Article 12 of the Draft stipulates import tax exemption for orders with small value (from 1 million VND or less).

According to VCCI, this regulation is not really suitable and risks continuing to create inequality with domestically produced goods. Because most goods imported via e-commerce are of low value, usually not exceeding 1 million VND. VCCI statistics in 2024, more than 324.1 million imported products were sold via Shopee, generating revenue of 14,200 billion VND, or an average value of only about 43,682 VND/product. Thus, the 1 million VND threshold regulation means that most imported e-commerce goods will not be subject to import tax.

In addition, VCCI emphasized that the above regulation will create inequality with domestically produced goods when domestic enterprises have to pay import tax on imported raw materials to produce goods, while e-commerce goods are completely exempted from import tax. However, VCCI also acknowledged that building an import tax policy for imported e-commerce goods will face many challenges. It is difficult to apply the HS code regulations as for traditional imported goods to e-commerce goods for the following reasons. Specifically, each e-commerce shipment often consists of many small orders, each order has many items with very different HS codes.

The extremely diverse range of e-commerce goods can lead to large-scale difficulties in determining HS codes, delaying the delivery process, leading to order cancellations, causing damage to sellers and e-commerce platforms. In fact, the tax exemption regulation with a threshold of 1 million VND also comes from the principle: the cost of collecting small-value products can be much larger than the amount of tax collected. To solve this problem, international experience shows that it is necessary to simplify the tax schedule for e-commerce goods. For example, HS codes can be grouped into a number of "goods baskets" by industry group or function, each basket corresponding to a specific tax rate. For example, basket 1 includes clothing, footwear, textiles, bedding; basket 2 includes electronic devices such as computers, phones, headphones, etc.

Industry and Trade Newspaper

Source: https://congthuong.vn/tin-cong-thuong-265-dau-tuan-gia-xuat-khau-gao-on-dinh-389434.html