VIETNAM TEA SECTOR OVERVIEW

Tea sector summary 1. Farming: Total area: ha. 2. Processing: Beginning-year stock: tons Production output: tons Official export: tons Domestic consume: tons End-year stock: tons

Summary Export proportion: Black tea 47% Green tea 51% Other 2% Average price of OTD Black tea: 1.50 USD/kg, CTC Black tea: 1.25 USD/kg, Green tea: 2.00 USD/kg, Number of export companies: 350 Import market: 60 countries and regions Ownership: Almost tea plantations, factories, export companies became private ownership.

Biggest tea import markets in 2015 Afganistan Taiwan Russia Pakistan Indonesia USA China United Arab Emirates Malaysia

Opportunities and challenges of Vietnamese Tea Traditional markets require strict standards on safeness and food hygiene. Payment difficulty: For example, Russia, Pakistan and Afghanistan No commitment, regular change – Pakistan, China Potential markets but with lower price and low grade tea: ASEAN, USA With low prices, lots of factories are going to be closed because of loss. For CTC tea markets, we are competing harshly with suppliers from Africa. Labor cost is getting higher. Due to fast industrialization, workers prefer working in cities than planting tea. Tea products are in high competition with other agricultural products as fruit, coffee, pepper…

Plan in 2016 Recommend enterprises shift focus on producing safe tea. Focus more on specialty tea. Regularly organize, check hygiene and food safety, manage the medium and large scaled units. Support the establishment of new "agricultural team" to control the use of pesticides. Enterprises support farmers to apply the sustainable production model; select new varieties, fertilizers and pesticides correctly, apply standards on good agricultural practice, certificates (RA, Organic, Fair Trade). Apply new technologies for the specialty and traditional tea products.