Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’s tea exports are forecastto increase in both volume and value in the remaining months of 2017 due togrowing global demand and limited supply.
The reduction of output in major tea exporting countries suchas Kenyan, India and Sri Lanka, will push up tea prices, benefiting Vietnameseenterprises in the short term.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam exported 103,000tonnes of tea worth 164 million USD in the first nine months of 2017, representingyear-on-year rises of 12 percent and 11.2 percent respectively.
Pakistan, Taiwan and Russia were the biggest importers of teafrom Vietnam, accounting for 51.5 percent of Vietnam’s total tea exportturnover in the January-August period.
Besides opportunities, Vietnamese tea exporters are facing anumber of challenges related to production costs, processing technology,quality standards, and marketing.
In the context of global economic integration,apart from tariff reduction, businesses have to suffer pressure from technicalbarriers, especially regarding food hygiene and safety.
To ensure sustainable growth of tea exports, local exportersneed to join global value chains, promote tea production models meeting GoodAgricultural Practice (VietGap) standards, build up brand names and invest intechnology to penetrate into such choosy markets as the US and European Union(EU).
Vietnam has exported tea products to 110 countries andterritories worldwide, with the Vietnamese tea brand names registered forprotection in 70 countries and regions.
Vietnam is now the world’s seventh largest tea producer andfifth biggest tea exporter with 124,000 hectares under tea farming and over 500facilities which produces more than 500,000 tonnes of dried tea per year.-VNA