Trung Nguyen Coffee Owner Wins ASEAN Excellent Young Entrepreneur Prize

Trung Nguyen Coffee Owner Wins ASEAN Excellent Young Entrepreneur Prize

Dang Le Nguyen Vu, general director of the Trung Nguyen Coffee Company and laureate of the 2001 Vietnam Red Star Award, was awarded ASEAN’s most excellent young entrepreneur prize thanks to its outstanding business scale and its achievement in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital city of Brunei, on August 8, 2004. 

Alongside Vu, five young entrepreneurs from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei, and the Myanmar Women Entrepreneurs’ Association won the prize. Vu has impressed ASEAN countries with his great achievements and strategic business ideas.

Trung Nguyen products at an exhibition for individuals and organisations winning the prize attracted great attention from the public. The public was surprised to hear that Trung Nguyen coffee could compete with famous coffee giants, namely Nestle and Starbucks and that Vietnam had become the second largest coffee exporter in the world after Brazil and the largest exporter of robusta coffee.

In his speech at the prize presentation ceremony, Vu made a great impression on the audience when he introduced his wish to build trademarks for farm-produce in order to increase the value of farm-produce of Vietnam and other ASEAN countries. Vu’s ideas were welcomed and supported by the audience. Thanks to Trung Nguyen’s concrete image and achievements, people from other ASEAN countries have come to better understand the dynamic economy and rapidly developing entrepreneurs in Vietnam.

Present at the ceremony, Vietnamese ambassador to Brunei Ha Hong Hai said that he was very happy and proud of the achievements of Trung Nguyen Coffee and he hoped that Vietnam would develop more famous trademarks similar to other countries in the region. Hai said that famous brand names acted as economic ambassadors of each country, contributing to the building of the prestige and position of the country in the international arena.

Vu, born in 1971, was a medical student of the University of the Central Highlands. He started to do business in 1996 and rapidly turned Trung Nguyen into a leading coffee trademark in Vietnam. Currently, Trung Nguyen has more than 600 coffee shops in Vietnam, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and China. In 2001, Vu was presented with the Red Star Award for the top ten outstanding young entrepreneurs in Vietnam and a certificate of merit by the government and in 2003, Trung Nguyen Coffee was presented with the Sao Vang Dat Viet (Vietnam Land Golden Star) award. In November, 2003, Vu launched his new trademark G7 with an aim at entering international markets, especially the top seven industrial countries, G7.

With his wish to develop the value of Vietnam’s farm-produce in international markets, Vu and his company are exerting efforts to build a trademark and take advantage of their well-deserved position.

• Thu Huyen