A seminar focusing on tea products and the development of the tea sectorwas held in the northern province of Thai Nguyen on November 10,within the framework of the second International Tea Festival.

Delegates heard speeches on tea processing technology, the buildingand management of Thai Nguyen tea’s brand name and its consumptionmarket.

Challenges faced by the tea sector aswell as measures to preserve and raise the value of tea bushes andproducts of Thai Nguyen province and Vietnam as a whole were alsodiscussed during the seminar.

With 130,000 hectares of tea, Vietnam is now one of the five biggest tea producers and exporters in the world.

Thai Nguyen province, the second largest tea producer in Vietnamafter Lam Dong in the Central Highlands, earns more than 10.7 millionUSD from exporting 7,000 tonnes of tea each year, accounting for 11percent of the country’s total tea export turnover.

Thai Nguyen tea products are mainly sold to the US , Canada ,China , Japan , India , China ’s Taiwan , Russia ,Sri Lanka and Pakistan .

After the seminar,the delegates, made up of scientists, researchers and businesspeople inthe tea sector, made a fact-finding tour to some tea fields in theprovince.

On the day, Nguyen Thi My Ly, a20-year-old student from the Thai Nguyen University of Economics andBusiness Administration, won first prize in the 2013 Miss Tea LandContest.

The contest was held to honour the beauty of women in tea regions nationwide.-VNA