Vietnam looks to improve competitiveness of coffee
The Vietnamese Government is seeking effective measures to increase the quality of coffee beans, the country's second largest export product behind rice, Doan Trieu Nhan, Chairman of the Vietnam Coffee Association (Vicofa) said at an international coffee conference held on March 6-7 in Hanoi.
The conference, co- organized by the Vicofa and the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ), is to discuss methods to build a stable coffee industry in Vietnam, the second largest coffee exporter in the world in addition to Brazil.
A world coffee crisis since 1999 has forced Vietnam to seek a long-term strategy to build its coffee industry, which must be more stable to encourage local growers to conduct their business, Nhan stressed.
"Vietnam needs to carry out a real revolution in improving coffee quality," he said, affirming that only in this way could it build a stable industry.
Vietnam targets to narrow its robusta coffee area, which now accounts for over 90% of the country's coffee fields, by 400,000 hectares from now to the year 2004, in which around 100,000-120,000 hectares will be converted to arabica area.
Vicofa reported that the country has so far shifted just over 10,000 hectares of robusta to rubber, cashew, fruit and cocoa, out of the targeted 100,000 hectares.
An expert from Brazil, meanwhile, advised that Vietnam, especially the central highlands region, where 70% of the country's coffee is grown, should not chop down a great deal of its robusta area, as the local climate and basalt soil are more suitable to robusta than arabica. The country must meanwhile concentrate on improving its robusta quality, he said.
Le Quoc Hung, head of the Agriculture and Forestry Promotion Department under the agri ministry, asserted that coffee industry in Vietnam is risky because the coffee price is low, most products do not have trademarks and are too similar, and the coffee processing sector is weak.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is undertaking synchronous and comprehensive measures to help local growers to increase their bean quality, Hung said. Those methods include teaching farmers to produce high quality seeds and apply more advanced processing technology by using wet processing methods instead of the traditional fermentation process.
It is also preparing to create policies on providing sufficient irrigation systems, outlets and credits to encourage local growers, he said.
Coffee enterprises from Brazil, Germany and the Netherlands promised to continue assistance to boost Vietnam's coffee industry in the future.
Vietnam is now the number one robusta producer in the world with output of 900,000 tons two years ago. Around 1.6 million people earn their living from producing coffee, according to Vicofa's figures.
Hoover's - March 07, 2003.
|