Dak Lak (VNA) – The Central Highlands province of Dak Lak , mooted as the “coffee metropolis” of Vietnam , is planning for the second Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival in a bid to give a boost to domestic coffee consumption, which currently accounts for 7 percent of the total coffee output.
Vietnamese coffee is present in more than 80 countries and territories world wide. However, it is regrettable that the local market has been left untapped for a long time, Dak Lak Provincial People’s Committee Chairman Lu Ngoc Cu told a recent press briefing regarding the festival, scheduled for early December.
He also said that Vietnamese people consume an average of just under 1kg of coffee per person every year, while Europeans and Americans each get through up to 12-15 kg per person each year.
However, there is still a distinct lack of a specific strategy regarding domestic coffee consumption in Vietnam , a country with a population surpassing 80 million, experts said. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Cultivation Department, 520,000 ha of land is currently planted with coffee, concentrated mainly in the Central Highlands and the southeastern region.
More than 1 million tonnes of coffee beans were shipped overseas from the 2007 - 08 harvest, raking in over 2 million USD, the highest figure on record.
Although ranked fourth in the world in terms of coffee-growing acreage, Vietnam takes first place when it comes to the export of Robusta coffee.