Interest in Lao coffee brewing in Japan

i193.photobucket.com - A coffee producer in Champassak province will soon export large quantities of coffee to Japan, after talks with purchasers. “The Japanese market demands thousands of tonnes of coffee each year,” said Dao-Heuang Group President Ms Leuang Litdang in a recent interview. The group will begin exports to Japan with 200 tonnes of unprocessed coffee in December, with monthly shipments to follow. “Japan will be our new main market,” she said. Currently Dao-Heuang supplies both instant and unprocessed coffee to local and overseas markets such as Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Last year the company exported more than 8,000 tonnes of coffee to European, American and Asian markets. “We may consider reducing exports to Thailand now we have such a large market in Japan,” Ms Leuang said. The company is also hopeful about exporting coffee to China after Chinese visitors expressed interest at the fifth China-Asean Expo held last month in Nanning, China. “Our next market will be China. We plan to enter into agreements with Chinese purchasers soon,” she said. To meet the increasing demand for its products the company plans to build an instant coffee processing plant in Champassak province. Work is slated to start by the end of this year and the company will spend about 330 billion kip (30 million euros) to build the facility over the next two years. “We expect to start producing instant coffee by the end of 2010,” said Mrs Leuang. Staff are now designing the plant, which will have a production capacity of 7,000 to 8,000 tonnes of instant coffee a year. “When we can manufacture instant coffee we will be targeting the Chinese market,” she said. The company is building the plant because it is spending too much money on processing instant coffee in Indonesia. “I will stop renting the facilities in Indonesia as soon as the processing plant is built,” Ms Leuang said. Renting the Indonesian processing plant costs US$3 per kg of coffee, and the cost of shipping the coffee from Laos must be added to the overall production cost. The company owns a 250- hectare coffee plantation in Pakxong district, Champassak province, which yields about 500 tonnes of coffee a year. Local farmers supply additional coffee to the company. The coffee growing area has expanded in cooperation with local farmers. The company supplies farmers with coffee tree saplings and makes agreements to buy the beans from farmers when they are harvested. “So far we have distributed more than one million saplings and will continue to do so,” Mrs Leuang said. The company first began distributing saplings four years ago. The crop is ready for harvesting after three years. “Farmers harvest the beans and sell them to us. The price we pay them fluctuates depending on the market,” she said. Laos has about 18 coffee exporters, all in Champassak province, according to the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s directory of members. Dao-Heuang Import- Export Co Ltd was established in 1991. It is involved in several areas of business including coffee, duty free sales, plane ticket reservation, sales outlets, pharmacies and golf clubs. In 2007 Dao-Heuang combined its businesses into one group. The group has four main sections - agriculture, industry, import-export and services - with branches in Borikhamxay, Savannakhet and Champassak provinces. Ms Leuang Litdang was one of eight recipients of the 2008 Award for Asean Outstanding Women Entrepreneurs at the 18th Women’s Global Summit held in Vietnam last June.