Seven Vietnamese companies are displaying their products at the International Coffee and Tea Industry Expo 2014 and the Sweets and Bakes Asia 2014, being organised in Singapore from March 6-8.

T he exhibitions “ are being organi s ed primarily to provide business platform for companies that they are dealing with coffee, tea, cacao, various commodities because we believe that Singapore is a very important business and trading hub for all these commodities ,” said Edward Liu, Managing Director of the Conference and Exhibition Management Services .

He noted that on the opening day, close to 2,000 trade people who are very serious about doing business came to the exhibitions.

According to President of the Singapore Coffee Association Victor Mah , t here have been many exchanges of trade between Singapore and Vietnam . “ We have very good working relationship with Vietnamese coffee companies ,” he said.

“ W e look forward to Vietnam being the largest Robusta coffee producer in the world” as Vietnam has “very good Robusta grey coffee , ” he said, adding that “most of the coffee which is used for the local traditional type coffee in Singapore is from Vietnam and Indonesia.”

According to Vietnam Customs, the trade value of Vietnam’s coffee exports to Singapore stood at about 1 million USD l ast year.

Victor Mah , i n his capacity as President of the ASEAN Coffee Federation, expressed hope that Vietnam will join and take an active role in the ASEAN Coffee Federation, which now has Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Laos as members.

The Vietnamese companies are among about 100 companies and organisations from 18 countries taking part in the second annual International Coffee and Tea Industry Expo and the Sweets and Bakes Asia held for the first time.

On the first two days of the exhibitions, many business people visited the Vietnam pavilion.-VNA