The US$544,000 project, funded by the French Agency of Development (AFD), will be conducted by Viet Nam’s Tea Association (VTA) and will be based on an opinion survey of the Ministry of Planning and Investment and relevant agencies such as the Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Viet Nam’s Tea Corporation and the private sector.

"The trading centre will establish the highest quality standards for tea trading in the industry and will become the place where customers can study the market, examine the quality and freshness of samples and buy tea regularly," said Nguyen Kim Phong, Chairman of VTA. Moreover, the trading centre will advertise the country’s tea products as well as tea companies to the world market.

At the centre, sellers and buyers will be able to negotiate prices and quality in public. It will, therefore, be easy to eliminate inferior quality teas that negatively affect the sector’s credibility. The current situation is that a lot of companies produce tea of low quality which confuses customers and results in low prices. "In fact, even though Vietnamese tea quality is equal to other countries, it’s price is much lower," said Phong.

Once the world’s large tea companies learn to have confidence in the tea trading centre, it is hoped that they will set up their own trading offices in the country which will result in Viet Nam becoming an important trading centre in the world’s tea market.