The seventh annual Buon Ma Thuot coffee festival will be held on March 9 - 16, 2019 in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak with a wide range of activities featuring the local specialty.

The festival will include an opening ceremony, a closing ceremony, the 2019 Dak Lak investment promotion conference, an exhibition on coffee, a seminar on the development of Vietnamese specialty coffee, an exhibition on the world’s coffee history, a street festival, a contest for farmers, a Vietnamese specialty coffee quality competition, free coffee tasting, a Buon Don elephant festival, and an international paragliding contest.

The annual event aims to promote Buon Ma Thuot coffee brand, develop Vietnam specialty coffee and gradually turn Buon Ma Thuot city into a destination for coffee aficionados worldwide, contributing to affirm Vietnamese coffee’s position on the global market.

It also aims to honour domestic coffee growers, processors and traders while encouraging the community to join hands to develop coffee culture.

Coffee was first cultivated in Vietnam in 1857. To date, Vietnam’s coffee growing areas reached 20,000ha. The country exports 1.8 million tonnes of coffee beans, raking in 3.2 billion USD per year. Vietnam is currently the world’s second largest coffee exporter, after Brazil.

Vietnam exported 1.46 million tonnes of coffee worth 2.77 billion USD in the first nine months of 2018, an increase of 20.1 percent in volume and 0.4 percent in value compared to the same period last year.

The Central Highlands province of Dak Lak boasts the country’s largest coffee-growing area, with a total area of about 190,000 hectares, producing 450,000 tonnes of coffee beans annually. -VNA