Vietnam's tea producers should meet Fairtrade International'scertification standards to increase the competitive quality of teaproducts and improve their export value, said experts. Accordingto the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the national teaexport value in the first half of this year saw a reduction of 6.7percent in volume to 54,000 tonnes and 4.1 percent in value to 90 USDmillion against the same period last year. Vietnam is one of thetop five tea producers in the world and exports tea to 120 countriesand territories, including Taiwan, Pakistan, mainland China, the UnitedStates, and Russia, as well as Malaysia and Singapore. Vietnamese tea products have covered 60 percent of the black tea market and 40 percent of the green tea market in the world. However,Hoang Vinh Long, Head of the Vietnam Tea Association's administrationoffice, said Vietnamese tea export is mostly pre-processing productspackaged in large bags without any brand name, so their export value hasbeen low because Vietnamese tea exporters have not built a brand orproduced finished tea products for exporting to direct customers. Meanwhile,most Vietnamese tea producers and traders have small production andbusiness units, low capital, and limited skills for marketing andnegotiating export contracts, he noted. The other reasons forthe low export value of tea products include the poor skill of teagrowers, small investments in the tea industry, low supply, undevelopedtea processing industry, and unstable quality. Now, customers athome and abroad pay more attention to the origin of products andproduction conditions at enterprises, according to the association.Therefore, Vietnam's tea producers should get the internationalfairtrade certification to improve the quality and competitiveness ofVietnamese tea products on the world market. The fairtradecertification is one of the current trends in international trade,Nguyen Thi Hong Minh from the Vietnam Research Institute of RuralIndustry was quoted as saying by the Thoi bao Kinh doanh (The BusinessTimes) newspaper. Many customers value the certification thatsupports fair production and business practices and respects sustainableliving environments, she said. These issues are new for Vietnamese teaproducers, and hence, they have not paid much attention to them. Longpointed out that Vietnam has only two tea producers who have theinternational fairtrade certification: Bac Ha Investment and DevelopmentCompany Limited and Shan Tea Cooperative in Yen Bai province. Interestsof the certification are to have more export market and a higher exportprice, as well as establish long-term and sustainable businessrelations, he added. However, local tea producers' knowledge ofthe certification is low, he observed. Most of them have small capital,while large investments are needed to improve production and productquality, two requirements for attaining the certification.-VNA