Ho Xuan Hung, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that over the past years Vietnam has offered many incentives to encourage non-State economic sectors to invest in agriculture, including tea production. However, he said, investment in tea production and processing remains limited, which has not yet matched its potential.
At the conference, delegates discussed measures to attract domestic and foreign investments in the tea sector, increase trade promotion and establish a tea trading floor in Vietnam.
“We create favourable conditions for domestic and foreign businesses to invest in tea production,” said Nguyen Kim Phong, President of the Vietnam Tea Association.
He said endowed with a mild climate, Vietnam has great potential for increasing tea cultivation area and developing specialities of tea.
Since 2006, Vietnam has been placed fifth in the world and first in ASEAN in terms of tea output and exports. Currently, 675 businesses of all economic sectors and 400,000 households are involved in planting and processing tea. Every year, they produce 160,000 tonnes of dried tea, of which 80 percent is for export.
In the past 9 months, Vietnam exported 97,000 tonnes of tea, earning US$127 million, a year-on-year increase of 14 percent.
(VOV)
