The Hindu Business Line : Vietnam, Cambodia to become IPC members

VIETNAM, now the top producer and exporter of pepper in the world, will become a member of the Jakarta-based International Pepper Community (IPC) before the 32nd session/meetings of IPC to be held from September 27 to 30 at Jogyakarta in Indonesia.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed between the Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA) and the IPC during the visit of a high-level delegation to Vietnam last week, Mr S. Kannan, Director (Marketing), Spices Board, who represented India at the high-level meetings told Business Line on Thursday. He said the Vietnamese Government and the VPA had agreed in principle to join the community before the next IPC meet. Since the Vietnamese Government did not have a system like in India to deal with such issues, the Government had entrusted the VPA to sign the MoU, he said.

He said Vietnam had sought some concessions on the subscription it has to make initially for the membership. Being the major producer and exporter, it might have to dole out some $52,000, which the VPA finds difficult to pay. He said the estimated production in Vietnam in 2003 was 85,000 tonne and exports 80,500 tonne and production in 2004 is projected at over 90,000 tonnes. A decision on the concession issue would have to be taken at the heads of delegation meeting of the IPC. Since six months had already elapsed from the last meet in India, there were indications that it might be allowed to pay $26,000 to become the member.

The delegation also visited Cambodia, a small producer of pepper with 5,000 tonne. The authorities there had also agreed in-principle to join the IPC as an associate member, he said.

The member countries have to bear the total annual administrative expenses of the IPC. Fifty per cent of it is shared equally by the members, while 25 per cent on the basis of production and balance 25 per cent on the basis of exports, he said. The associate member would have to pay $5,000 per annum.

Meanwhile, a report from Singapore said that Indonesia was planning to withdraw from 41 international institutions including the IPC as part of its government's cost-saving drive. However, the present IPC Chairman, Mr C.J. Jose, who is also the Chairman of the Spices Board here, told Business Line that the community had not received any such request so far from the Indonesian Government.

The present IPC member countries are Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka while the non-IPC pepper producing nations include Vietnam, China, Thailand, Madagascar and Cambodia.

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