On the border between Vietnam and China, truck drivers from a small village were waiting. Some of them karaoke. They wait, sometimes weeks, to bring their goods into China.
One of the drivers, Nguyen Tan Nam said, “It’s been a month and 10 days, I still can’t get in.”
For the same time before the pandemic, Tan Nam said, he could two to three times back and forth into China, receiving about $220 for each trip.
The cause of the problem, COVID-19.
Another driver, Nguyen Cong Vy, who was transporting the jackfruit, said, “The Chinese side announced that one or more truck drivers on their side contracted COVID-19, so they closed the border for disinfection. That’s why we have to wait a long time for the jackfruit to rot.”
China implements a zero COVID policy. When contagion occurs, they temporarily close the border. And when COVID was detected, they temporarily banned certain imported fruits.
Economist Adam McCarty said other agricultural products such as rice and coffee may find new markets outside of China. Meanwhile, “Fruit and vegetable products that are physically closely connected to China, they face a big problem,” he said.
In neighboring Vietnam, Cambodia, longan growers like Preap Nak sell the fruit to a Thai company that acts as an intermediary to export their produce to China. He said no one was buying his fruit for export during the pandemic.
Strict controls on fruit imports and delays at the border are also expected to have an impact on consumers in China.
Economist Adam McCarty added, “In general I expect prices to rise, and Chinese consumers to suffer the consequences of the zero COVID policy at the border.”
Meanwhile, truck drivers like Nguyen Tan Nam see no way out of this long delay. He said the wives and children of the drivers had to support themselves somehow while the husbands waited.[ka/jm]