Notes on the "diversion" of coffee beans

Follow the caf é (Wechat official account vdailycom) and found that Beautiful Cafe opened a small shop of its own.

Open the web page of Chongqing Coffee Trading Center, and you can see the inventory of coffee from Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and other places at a glance at major ports. In addition, reference prices for some coffee trading locations are published on the website.

In the coffee trading center, you can't see a single grain of coffee. But it has become the largest coffee trading center in the country. For more than a hundred years, coffee beans from Southeast Asia and Yunnan have gone to Europe by sea. But in recent years, more and more coffee beans come to Chongqing and then go to Europe via the Chongqing-Singapore-Europe railway. Why can Chongqing, which does not produce a single coffee bean, attract coffee beans to "divert"?

"Vietnam, located in Southeast Asia, is a big coffee grower." Xiang Yongdong, chairman of Chongqing Neng Tou Import and Export Co., Ltd., said that Vietnam has an annual output of about 1.5 million tons of coffee beans and exports to more than 80 countries and regions.

Previously, coffee beans from these places were shipped to Europe by sea for European consumption. In 2016, however, the situation suddenly changed. Coffee from Vietnam, Laos and Yunnan began to pour into Chongqing and then sent from Chongqing to Europe by rail. Wu Bin, a doctor of industrial economics at Renmin University of China who has long studied the coffee industry, said the change stems from the birth of the Chongqing Coffee Trading Center.

Chongqing Coffee Center opened in June 2016, which is the only coffee factor market and trading institution with financial settlement function approved by the people's government at or above the provincial level in China. One year after opening, the total spot trading volume of coffee has reached 5.268 billion yuan, making it the largest electronic coffee trading platform in China. About 50, 000 tons of coffee goes in and out of Chongqing.

"New York and London are the two largest coffee trading centers in the world. They are both located in the place where coffee is consumed. Asia is the third largest coffee consumer in the world, but it does not have its own trading center. Chongqing takes advantage of its unique geographical advantages and policy conditions. It is the right time to establish a coffee trading center." Wu Bin said.

According to Peng de, general manager of Chongqing Coffee Trading Center, after its establishment, the Coffee Center soon attracted more than 180 member enterprises, covering the whole industrial chain of coffee cultivation, storage, trade and deep processing, and signed strategic cooperation agreements with foreign coffee trading enterprises such as France's Louis Dreyfus Group, Germany's Newman Coffee Group and Japan's Itochu Commercial Co., Ltd., building a bridge between supply and demand.

In the past, there was a lack of coffee trading platform, information asymmetry between supply and demand, and the flow of factors was not smooth, thus affecting transaction efficiency and transaction scale. Now relying on the trading platform, we can quickly achieve the flow of elements, and then promote economies of scale. " Peng de said.

In addition, the coffee trading center also triggered the "siphon effect", and coffee-related industries have been laid out in Chongqing, making Chongqing's coffee industry chain becoming more and more perfect.

Coffee beans pass through Chongqing, in addition to the pull of the trading platform, but also need convenient logistics conditions, and in this regard, Chongqing also has a unique advantage.

"Chongqing is located at the Y-shaped connection between the 'Belt and Road Initiative' and the Yangtze River Economic Belt, with the Yangtze River Golden Waterway, the ASEAN International Highway Logistics Corridor and the Yu-Xin-Europe International Freight Railway, coupled with the policy advantages of the bonded area and the free trade zone. Chongqing has become an inland open highland, and the agglomeration of surrounding elements has been significantly enhanced." Xiang Yongdong said that coffee beans from Southeast Asia and Yunnan can enter Chongqing in two ways: one is road transport, and the other is river-sea transport.

A "diversion" of small coffee beans not only makes Chongqing play an increasingly important role in the global coffee market, but also has an impact on people's lives that can not be ignored. The improvement of coffee transaction efficiency leads to the reduction of coffee price and the improvement of coffee quality, and the accumulation of coffee elements promotes the rise of coffee culture. Nowadays, some local coffee shops in Chongqing are expanding rapidly and improving their quality, which are more and more recognized by the market. " Wu Bin said.