Illustrative photo (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam supplied 25 percentof Japan’s imported coffee products in the first 11 months of 2018, accordingto Nikkei Asian Review.
The publication said Vietnam is closing in onmarket-leader Brazil, which accounted for 27 percent of Japan’s coffee imports,falling 7 percent year on year over the same period.
Mostof Vietnam's coffee beans are of the Robusta variety, known for beingrelatively easy to grow and resistant to disease and pests -- qualities thatensure stable crops. The beans make for a heady, somewhat bitter coffee incontrast to Brazil's more costly Arabica beans, which tend to have a sweeter,softer flavour.
NikkeiAsian Review quoted Toyohide Nishino, executive director of the All JapanCoffee Fair Trade Association, as saying that consumer thirst for good tasting,low-priced coffee is driving Robusta's market share.
Japanimported 88,000 tonnes of unroasted coffee beans from Vietnam in all of 2017 --a tenfold jump from a decade before -- and surged 15 percent year on year to94,000 tonnes in the 2018 January-November period alone.
Thepublication also cited the proximity of Vietnam to Japan as an advantage forVietnam in the Japanese market, noting that shipping from Vietnam or otherregional producers takes only about half as long as Arabica coming from LatinAmerica. And among Southeast Asian coffee producers, Vietnam's largerproduction base offers a more stable supply than, for example, Indonesia.
Inaddition, Vietnam will benefit from a market increasingly polarised on the highand low-end segments even though Japanese demand for Arabica coffee remainssolid, Vietnam will be a beneficiary of a market increasingly polarized on thehigh- and low-end segments, Shiro Ozawa, an adviser for Tokyo-based specialtycoffee trader Wataru and Co. was quoted as saying by Nikkei Asian Review.-VNA
VNA
