China, a traditional tea consumer, occupies a prominent place in the strategy of the International Coffee Organization (ICO) to boost world coffee demand, ICO Executive Director Nestor Osorio said Monday in Salvador.

Though the consumption of coffee in China is small, it already has reported an annual 15-percent increase, well above the 2-percent growth in the world, said Osorio at a press conference here.

He said China's opening up has made the potential of the coffee market evident.

"Naturally, we cannot think of China as a 1.2-billion-consumer market. Probably, the potential Chinese market for a product like coffee would limit to 200 or 250 million people," said Osorio.

"Nonetheless, this means a market as big as that of the United States, the main consumer in the world," he said.

Since late 1980s, ICO has been analyzing the possibilities of a vigorous Chinese coffee market.

Osorio said the strong growth of coffee consumption in China has led all the multinational coffee firms to enter China. "The future will be spectacular there," he said.

ICO studies showed that in a country with a long tea consumption history, the growth of the coffee market will need an "education process" among consumers.

Source: Xinhua