TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia as the fourth largest coffee producer in the world is exploring potential Vietnamese market, Antara reported Thursday, Feb. 8.
The Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Hanoi and Viet Nam Coffee Cacao Association (VICOFA) has held a business forum Promoting Indonesia-Viet Nam Cooperation in Coffee in Hanoi.
The business forum was aimed at making Indonesian coffee marketable in the potential Vietnamese market.
The Indonesian ambassador to Vietnam, Ibnu Hadi, stated that the forum was also aimed at promoting Indonesian coffee and establishing business cooperation in achieving the bilateral trade target of Indonesia-Vietnam amounting to US$10 billion by 2020.
The total trade value between Indonesia and Vietnam in 2017 rose by 16.36 percent to US$6.5 million, from US$5.58 million in 2016.
With a coffee area of 662,200 hectares, Vietnam`s coffee exports in 2017, including green coffee beans, roasted and ground, and instant coffee, rose from 26.05 million bags to 26.55 million bags.
Read: Jokowi Vietnam PM Discuss Trade Cooperation
Vietnam`s coffee export market has expanded to Germany, the United States, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Poland, France, Korea, the UK, and Japan.
During 2017, Vietnam imported green coffee beans, roasted and ground, and instant coffee from Indonesia and Brazil.
Vietnam`s total coffee import from Indonesia in 2017 increased to one million Green Bean Equivalent (GBE) bags from the previous 640 thousand GBE bags in 2016.
Coffee consumption in Vietnam is predicted to increase from 2.32 million GBE bags in 2017 to 2.93 million GBE bags in 2018 as the number of coffee shops in Vietnam is increasing.
The percentage of coffee market volume in Indonesia and Vietnam is estimated to reach 79.89 percent and 24 percent respectively between 2015 and 2020.
In 2017, Indonesia is able to produce 10.9 million GBE bags, of which 3.32 million GBE bags are consumed, while the rest is for foreign exports.
One of the many kinds of Indonesia`s tasty coffee has been designated as the best coffee in the world at the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Expo in Atlanta, Georgia, the US, on April 14-17, 2016. It is the Puntang coffee named after Mount Puntang in West Java Province. Furthermore, it is one of specialty coffee of Java Preanger.
The Java Preanger specialty coffee has an outstanding taste because its seeds are brought directly from Kenya without being planted first in other places.
ANTARA
