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Nestles interested in Vietnamese coffee
Nestles, the huge multinational company, has indicated it is keen to develop a working interest in the Vietnamese coffee industry.
This was revealed at a meeting of Vietnamese and British coffee importers and exporters held by the Viet Nam Coffee and Cocoa Association (VICOFA) and the Vietnamese Embassy's trade office in London on Monday.
Gary Milsted, Green Coffee Manager Nestle UK Ltd, said world coffee consumption continued to grow.
He said the Croydon Commodity Purchasing Centre of Competence, which is responsible for buying and hedging Nestle's commodity requirements, was keen to build business in Vietnam. Croydon will work with Vicofa to support initiatives on improving quality and sustainably sourced coffee.
Chairman of VICOFA, Luong Van Tu, said Vietnam was paying great attention to advanced cultivation technologies, such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), Good Management Practice (GMP) and Common Code for Coffee Community (4C) into coffee cultivation to improve coffee quality in an environmentally friendly way.
Tu said many Vietnamese enterprises were making efforts to produce organic coffee. He also said challenges for most Vietnamese coffee farms included lack of finance, market information and business skills.
Vietnam coffee is exported to 70 countries. The main markets are Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea. Vietnam exports about 840,000 tonnes of coffee a year, about 20 per cent of world supply.
Vietnamese Ambassador Tran Quang Hoan said there was great potential in trade and investment in general and especially in the field of coffee.
The Commercial Counsellor of the Viet Nam Trade Office in Britain, An The Dung, said Britain now ranked third among EU countries investing in Vietnam with 105 projects capitalised at about US$1.9 billion. In 2007, two-way trade amounted to $1.8 billion.
VNN
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