Vietnam, the world's sixth largest tea exporter and eighth tea producer, will grow and export more tea as well as building more tea processing plants in the next five years, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced on February 28.
The country plans to record total output of around 577,000 tons of tea from 125,000 hectares of tea and then export around 100,000 tons of the products to earn around US$110 million this year, posting year-on-year increases in all figures.
Meanwhile, Vietnam expects to expand the tea cultivation area to 150,000 hectares with estimated output of 870,000 tons in 2010 and ship abroad 120,000 tons of tea of all kinds totaling some US$200 million in the year.
It also plans to establish 95-100 tea processing facilities with daily capacity of handling 12 tons of fresh tea each in the 2005- 2010 period, the ministry said.
The country, in the next few years, will set up two main tea production zones, one in the northern mountainous region and the other in central highlands Lam Dong province. It also plans to intensify cultivation of specialty and fragrant tea in the two northern province of Son La and Ha Giang in the first zone.
To meet increasing demand for Vietnamese tea in markets such as China, Taiwan, Russia and the US, Vietnam is speeding up application of advanced technologies in tea cultivation and processing, usage of new tea strains, and diversification of tea products.
Vietnam exported 10,700 tons of tea valued at US$10.9 million in the first two months of this year, posting year-on-year rises of 33.6 per cent and 56.1 per cent, respectively, according to the Government Statistics Office.
Vietnam, which currently cultivates about 120,000 hectare of tea trees, shipped abroad 97,000 tons of tea products worth US$93 million in 2004.
Investment, Vietnam Economic Times
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