The UK-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement and the UK's participation in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership have been creating additional competitive advantages for Vietnamese coffee in the market, said Nguyễn Cảnh Cường, trade counsellor at Việt Nam's Embassy to the UK.
In May, the UK imported coffee from over 60 countries and territories. There were five markets with import volumes reaching over 1,000 tonnes. Of which, Việt Nam took the lead, followed by Brazil, the Netherlands, Honduras, and Spain.
Over the past five months of 2023, the UK imported nearly 20,000 tonnes of coffee from Việt Nam. The export price of Vietnamese coffee to the UK was 13.7 per cent higher than the general export price of Vietnamese coffee in the period.
Later in June, Việt Nam's coffee export price to the UK market reached US$2,802 per tonne, up 21.21 per cent over the previous month and up 35.24 per cent over the same month last year.
Other trade experts said the UK market was very competitive with imports from many countries. To keep stability in coffee exports to the UK, the Vietnamese coffee industry needed to meet increasingly stringent requirements as well as the consumer tastes of the British people.
Besides that, Vietnamese coffee enterprises should offer products that use modern processing technology to increase product quality, they said.
Experts suggested local enterprises invest in producing high-quality Arabica coffee from small-scale growing regions. The firms should also have governance abilities, traceability, and more sustainable development, they noted.
In addition, businesses needed to invest in marketing activities to access the UK market more conveniently, experts have advised.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Việt Nam exported nearly 1.2 million tonnes of coffee over the past eight months of this year, earning nearly $3 billion, down 5.7 per cent in volume but up 32.3 per cent in value thanks to increased selling prices.
Việt Nam's largest coffee export markets included Germany, Italy, the US, and Japan.
Thanks to a trend of hiking in coffee prices, experts predicted that this year’s export revenue of this product might exceed last year’s record of $4 billion. — VNS
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