Viet Nam, UK to boost coffee trade
Viet Nam, UK to boost coffee trade
Vietnamese and British coffee enterprises are keen on doing more business together, Viet Nam Coffee and Cocoa Association (VICOFA) Chairman Luong Van Tu said on Wednesday.
Tu was speaking to a Vietnam News Agency correspondent at a roundtable discussion on the coffee business in London.
The seminar, jointly held by VICOFA, British Coffee Association and the Embassy of Viet Nam in the United Kingdom, aims to boost coffee trade between the two countries.
Participants discussed measures to develop and promote coffee production standards in line with the principles of sustainable development. They also talked about the quality of coffee and how export supply chains are organised in producing countries such as Viet Nam.
At the seminar, Vietnamese Ambassador to the UK Nguyen Van Thao pledged his strong support to facilitate Vietnamese market access to UK enterprises. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh said Viet Nam encouraged foreign investors to pour capital into agriculture, including the coffee processing technology.
Viet Nam is the largest coffee producer in Asia and second in the world after Brazil. Every year, Viet Nam exports 90 per cent of what it produces with a volume of some 1.3 million tonnes, earning over US$3 billion. In recent years, Viet Nam has increased the export of processed coffee — roasted, ground and 3 in 1.
The Vietnamese coffee industry is focusing more on processing instant coffee, which generates higher profits for the national coffee sector.
Domestic consumption is also increasing rapidly. In 2015, Viet Nam had 17,300 coffee shops nationwide. There are several coffee shop chains in the country, such as Highland Coffee, Trung Nguyen, Me Trang and Vinacafe. The Starbucks chain has developed at a very rapid pace in Viet Nam.
In 2015, bilateral trade turnover between the United Kingdom and Viet Nam reached $5.4 billion, an increase of 25 per cent against the previous year.
In terms of coffee, the United Kingdom is among the top 10 largest coffee importing markets of Viet Nam.
