Thai Nguyen’s tea products are certified under OCOP standards since technology was applied to production and it began using high-yield tea varieties, bio-pesticides, and organic fertilizer. This has helped double or triple the tea price.

Vu Van Phan, Director of the provincial Department for Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality, says maintaining the quality of OCOP products is challenging. He called on cooperatives and businesses to comply with quality assurance regulations to increase the value of their OCOP products and dominate domestic and foreign markets.

“We’ve strengthened the inspection and oversight of certified products to ensure quality. Farmers have understood that certified products need to be protected and produced in accordance with regulations, because they earn greater profits,” Phan recalled.

Thai Nguyen province has the largest tea growing area in Vietnam, nearly 23,000 hectares, turning out 244,000 tons of tea. Its tea products are sold in 63 provinces and cities and several other countries.

Although OCOP tea products produce more revenue, about 12,000 USD per hectare, the cultivation area of OCOP tea only accounts for 10% of the total area. And the link between production chains and value chains in the tea industry remains loose, largely depending on tea growers to process and sell the tea themselves. Few businesses have linked with tea growers so they don’t create a large high quality output yet.

Although Thai Nguyen tea is exported, that is mainly in the form of raw materials at a price that is just 60% of the average selling price in the world market.

She said, “What the owners of OCOP products want most is to promote the products to larger markets. They also want to expand raw material growing areas to maintain and further improve product quality.”

To achieve the target of 1 billion USD in revenue, Thai Nguyen has increased support for promotional activities by cooperatives and businesses, trade promotion, and packaging design.

Training programs have been organized, focusing on OCOP, e-commerce development on digital platforms, and the application of digital economic models combined with livestreaming to introduce and promote products.

Nguyen Minh Tien, Director of the Agricultural Trade Promotion Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that they are promoting e-commerce and social networks. “This month, we’ll sign cooperation agreements with Tiktok, Viettel post, and other social networks to promote OCOP products,” said Tien.

Forming a closed chain from planting, tending, and harvesting to preserving, processing, and packaging, to advertising, trade promotion, and sales, and expanding raw material areas and conforming the process to national standards are steps the Thai Nguyen tea industry is taking to reach its 1 billion USD target as soon as possible.