VIETNAM TEA INDUSTRY: AN ANALYSIS FROM VALUE CHAIN APPROACH

Over the past two decades, there has been an increasing trend in analyzing international trade from the perspective of “value chains”, particularly in agro industry. For many countries, particularly developing countries including Vietnam, agriculture is the backbone of economic development and the main source of income. Together with rice production, Vietnam is also known as one of the most ancient home of tea. Tea industry in Vietnam has a history of up to three thousand years and tea plays a vital role in income improvement and poverty alleviation in rural areas, especially in the Northern Uplands and North East South. In addition, tea is a high-value product that Viet Nam is already exporting to many other countries and territories worldwide. Having all these importance, there are still challenges facing the Vietnam tea industry including high fragmentation, small-scale operation and weak linkage among participants in the tea manufacturing process. This paper, hence, seeks to investigate the roles and benefits of participants in this single crop through value chain analysis to help them upgrade their position in the tea chain.