Study on Increasing the Efficiency of Agribusiness Exports in the Lao PDR: Case study of Export Lao coffee production

Abstract

The Lao coffee sector still faces many threats, including the depreciation of the US dollar and the Brazilian real, and the volatility of world coffee prices. Moreover, climate change has a direct impact on coffee production. In addition, smallholder farmers in Lao PDR still produce in a fragmented manner with low quality standards and lack bargaining power with middlemen-buyers both domestically and internationally. This is an important issue to study and explore how Lao coffee producers have adapted to mitigate these problems and can develop the coffee sector further. This analysis uses geographical information from a review of documents, research articles, and statistics to analyze the global coffee market, the Lao coffee market, and climate change affecting coffee production. However, the analysis shows that the global coffee market is still growing, albeit at a slower pace. The three largest coffee exporters in the world are Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, which account for about 60% of total world exports. Their main markets are the United States and the European Union, with the United States, Germany and France together accounting for about 40% of world coffee imports. For the Lao PDR, coffee production has been increasing every year, but the export percentage is less than 0.5% of world exports. In the past, coffee cultivation was limited to the Bolaven Plateau (southern Laos), but now many northern provinces have begun to expand their coffee cultivation areas, such as Phongsaly, Oudomxay, Luang Prabang, Houaphanhand, Xieng Khouang. About 90% of coffee exported is raw coffee, with the main export markets for raw coffee being Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Belgium and Germany.

Keywords: Agribusiness exports, Export efficiency, Coffee production Lao PDR, Coffee value chain, Agricultural competitiveness, Export performance, Supply chain management, Trade facilitation.

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/18-5-03

Publication date: May 30^th 2026