HANOI, Feb 4 (Reuters): Vietnam, the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, plans to double its capacity for making soluble products this year to around 200,000 tonnes by upgrading existing processing lines rather than investing in new facilities.
Raising domestic processing capacity for products, now accounting for around 5 per cent of annual output, could trim the Southeast Asian country's exports of semi-processed beans used mainly for making soluble coffee.
That could boost prices, as the world is already expected to have a deficit in the 2014/2015 marketing year of 6 million bags, according to a Reuters poll last month.
Vietnam is targeted to produce 200,800 tonnes of soluble coffee this year, raising it to 255,000 tonnes by 2020, the Agriculture Ministry said in a directive seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
Output of soluble products reached 88,700 tonnes in 2014, according to the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association.
The directive said output of roasted coffee, mostly used for domestic markets, was projected at 50,000 tonnes in 2020, taking the total volume of coffee to be processed by then to 305,000 tonnes, which it said would be equivalent to 25 per cent of Vietnam's total production.
That projection suggests Vietnam's coffee output will be 1.22 million tonnes in 2020.
Vietnam plans to double coffee processing capacity
FE Team | Published: February 05, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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