Vietnam's exports down on struggles with quality and competition
Vietnam, the world's fifth largest exporter of tea, saw export volume and value decrease as it tries to increase quality standards and fend off foreign competition. The country's woes are mainly attributed to tea being exported as raw material with very little added value. In fact, Vietnamese tea fetches prices about half the worlds average for commodity-grade crops, which contributed to annual exports dropping around 5% in volume and value compared to last year. Main factors behind this are scattered cultivation, lack of management of pesticide use, outdated farming techniques and lack of coordination between plantations for processing and distribution. The industry wowed to address the quality issues and improve the image of Vietnamese tea to better compete against countries like India, Sri Lanka and Kenya.