Chongqing's "Coffee Dream": connecting the Global Market with "Belt and Road Initiative"

"the Chinese coffee market is very large, and if it is exported to China, it can radiate other Asian markets." In a recent interview with China News Service in Chongqing, Consul General of the Consulate General of Ethiopia in Chongqing, Kobad Abera Aidu, said that it is hoped that the cooperation being discussed with the Chongqing Coffee Trading Center will be achieved, which will have a great impact on Ethiopia's coffee industry.

Located in the hinterland of China, Chongqing, which is not along the border, not near the sea, and does not produce a single coffee bean, set up a coffee trading center in June 2016. Huang Qifan, the then mayor of Chongqing, announced Chongqing's "ambition" at the opening: Chongqing Coffee Trading Center will build China's largest electronic coffee trading platform, coffee (cross-border) e-commerce platform, and coffee industry chain financing credit platform. And China Coffee Exchange settlement Center and Coffee big data Center.

File photo: interior view of a cafe. Photo taken by an Yuan, a reporter from China News Service

The trading center was jointly established by Chongqing Energy Investment Group and Yunnan Dehong Hongtian Industrial Group. Feng Yue, chairman of Chongqing Energy Investment Group, told reporters about the origin of the trading center.

In the period when the overall international commodity market is in the doldrums, the coffee trading volume is steadily rising. at the same time, China's coffee consumption is growing rapidly and has become a huge market. Feng Yue said that Chongqing Energy Investment Group cooperated with Yunnan Hougu Coffee in coffee trade as early as 2012, and in just a few years, the annual import and export trade volume of coffee increased from an initial US $13 million to US $720 million in 2016.

"We are optimistic about the prospects of the coffee industry and feel that the foundation of the domestic coffee industry is relatively weak and has not set up a good service platform." Feng Yue said that in June 2016, Chongqing Coffee Trading Center opened and became a coffee factor market and trading institution with financial settlement function.

However, the foundation of the coffee industry is weak, and it is not easy to build tall buildings on flat land. According to Feng Yue's analysis, Chongqing's advantage is that it is located at the connecting point of "Belt and Road Initiative" and the Yangtze River economic belt. With the advance of the construction of "Belt and Road Initiative", the inland city of Chongqing has turned from the open end to the open front. The Chongqing-Singapore-Europe international rail link from Chongqing to Duisburg, Germany connects Europe with the interior of western China. The one-way train journey takes less than two weeks, about a month less than the traditional sea transportation. Three kinds of water, railway and air transportation hubs, three national first-class ports and three special import and export supervision zones constitute Chongqing's opening platform to the outside world.

Feng Yue said that the coffee trading center can take advantage of Chongqing's unique advantages to connect Yunnan, China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and other major Asian coffee producing areas with European consumer markets.

This model has attracted the attention of relevant enterprises and institutions at home and abroad. On the day of its opening, Chongqing Coffee Trading Center signed strategic cooperation agreements with Louis Dreyfus in France, Newman in Germany, Itochu in Japan, Folan in Singapore, and the Bank of China. Since its opening, it has attracted coffee enterprises, financial institutions and industry organizations from Ethiopia, the Netherlands, Singapore, Indonesia and other countries to discuss cooperation.

The Netherlands is not only a country along the "Belt and Road Initiative" route, but also a big coffee consumer. Hu Yizhe, agricultural assistant of the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Chongqing, said in an interview with China News Service that relevant Dutch parties are in talks with Chongqing to set up a representative office and distribution warehouse of Chongqing Coffee Trading Center in the Netherlands to expand the European market.

Laos Changshengda Coffee Co., Ltd. operates a 180000 mu coffee garden in Laos and is expected to produce 10, 000 tons a year in 2019. Yin Chao, its general manager, revealed that thanks to the cooperation with Chongqing Coffee Trading Center, the company has added new markets in Japan, Mongolia, Germany and France, with new sales of about 27 million yuan.

Up to now, Chongqing Coffee Trading Center has more than 180 registered member enterprises in the coffee industry, covering the whole industry chain of coffee cultivation, storage, trade and deep processing, with a cumulative spot transaction volume of 5.268 billion yuan.

In addition, Chongqing Energy Investment Group has laid out a coffee intensive processing project with an annual output of 10,000 tons of freeze-dried coffee powder, and the products will be sold to European countries through the Chongqing-Singapore-Europe international railway transport channel; it is promoting the construction of the largest original coffee base and industrial park in Asia in Laos.

"this is our coffee dream." Feng Yue said: in the next step, we will improve the six major service systems of Chongqing Coffee Trading Center, namely, trading, settlement, information, standards, warehousing and logistics, and finance, deeply integrate into the construction of "Belt and Road Initiative", and realize the coordinated development of European and American markets, Chinese and Asian markets.