Vietnam to earn US$6 billion from coffee exports in 2030

HANOI, Jan 11 (Bernama): Vietnam is projected to earn US$5 to 6 billion from coffee exports in 2030, doubling the export value at present, says the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association.

To reach this figure, experts believe that the domestic coffee industry needs to increase the proportion of processed coffee products from less than 10 per cent at present to about 25 per cent or even more.

However, increasing the proportion of processed coffee products is a big challenge for the industry due to the level of technology, complex factory operation and awareness of farmers, according to Vietnam News Agency.

At present, Vietnam has 160 coffee roasting facilities, 11 coffee blending facilities and eight instant-coffee processing facilities. The number of instant-coffee processing facilities is small and most of them are operating below their designed capacity.

On the other hand, Vietnam's processed coffee brands still have no place in the world market, and branding takes a lot of money and effort.

Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai said that to gain the target of US$6 billion, Vietnam’s coffee industry needed to strengthen connection between production and trade, expand export markets and develop products associated with brand building, towards building a sustainable coffee value chain.

According to Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan, if the coffee industry wants to have sustainable development, there must be linkages among provinces or economic regions to form a larger-scale production area and build a brand for Tay Nguyen coffee.

The ministry, he said, will continue to implement projects on sustainable development for the domestic coffee industry.

For the Central Highlands provinces, the ministry will set up logistics infrastructure for the coffee industry to create higher coffee value and more processed products. This will form a coffee production chain to increase value of coffee beans and income for coffee producers.

"The Europe-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) has opened up great opportunities for the domestic coffee industry. In the future, the ministry will develop its projects on exporting agricultural products to the EU, including coffee. At the same time, it will also have a strategy for Vietnamese agricultural products to enter large distribution systems in Europe," Hoan said.

The global coffee price in 2022 is forecasted to remain high, with the Covid-19 pandemic limiting supply from major coffee producing countries such as Colombia and some other South American countries, according to the association. - Bernama