The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Industry and Trade and VICOFA will work together to list the coffee with the US Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

The move would be the first step in ensuring a strong presence for Vietnamese coffee in the global market.

Besides negotiating with the international exchange, government officials will also work on developing exchanges in Viet Nam and increasing the prominence of other Vietnamese agricultural products in the global market.

CME will offer training in online trading to Vietnamese traders temporarily sent to Chicago. The CME experts will then train traders at Buon Me Thuot Coffee Exchange Centre.

Established in November 2004, the centre currently only sells coffee through traditional auction methods on a domestic scale.

Buon Me Thuot Coffee Exchange Centre will carry out its first online trading transaction with CME by March 2008 if all goes a planned, a Vietnamese official said.

Listed on CME, Vietnamese coffee enterprises will be strategically positioned to understand their customers’ needs and get the latest information about prices and quality, he added.

The success of the coffee trading exchange centres in Viet Nam and Chicago will offer a model for future trading of other products, such as tea, timber and animal feed.