Vietnam is expected to earn around 120 million dollars from tea export this year, up 34.8 percent from last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The country plans to produce 870,000 tons of tea, and export 120,000 tons of the product valued at some 200 million U.S. dollars in 2010, said the Planning Department under the ministry Thursday.

Vietnam is intensifying tea export, both unpacked and bagged tea, to traditional and new markets, including such key ones as China, Thailand, the United States, Russia and the European Union. Local enterprises are selling more processed products to China instead of raw materials as currently, and seeking more long-term contracts with Chinese partners.

Vietnam is also focusing on improving the products' quality, intensifying trade promotion, promoting trademarks and getting to know tastes of foreign customers better.

Vietnam, which exported 89,000 tons of tea worth 100 million dollars in 2005, shipped abroad 96,000 tons of the product valued at 110 million dollars in the first 11 months of this year, posting respective year-on-year rises of 20.8 percent and 15 percent, according to the country's General Statistics Office.

By late 2005, Vietnam, home to some 600 tea firms, including 234 tea exporters, had 125,000 hectares of tea with annual output of 577,000 tons.

Source: Xinhua