Hanoi, Sept 18 - Vietnam has projected cocoa output to reach 52,000 tonnes by 2015 under a 40 billion dong ($2.5 million) investment plan to develop the infant industry, the Vietnam News Agency said on Tuesday.
Vietnam, the world's top producer of robusta coffee, has been developing its cocoa industry slowly as it tries to avoid a repeat of the overplanting in its coffee crop in the late 1990s that was blamed for a world price crash in 2001.
The official news agency quoted a plan approved by the Agriculture Ministry as saying it would expand cocoa acreage to 60,000 hectares (148,300 acres) over the next eight years, from 7,000 hectares now.
Of the 60,000-hectare target, 35,000 hectares would be productive, allowing exports worth $50 million to $60 million.
Vietnam would plant 20,000 hectares more by 2020 when output would reach 108,000 tonnes and export revenues would double to $100 million to $120 million, the report said.
In November 2005, the Southeast Asian country decided to develop cocoa into a commercial crop, more than six decades after the first trees were planted in the Central Highlands coffee belt.
There are cocoa plantations in the central provinces of Dak Nong and Daklak and also in the southern coastal provinces of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Ben Tre. The southern provinces also have coconut trees that are used to provide shade to cocoa trees.
In Daklak, cocoa prices have been unchanged since mid-August at 25,700 dong ($1.6) per kg, down from 27,700 dong early last month but a rise of 16.8 percent from the end of 2006.
Vietnam could yield 1.15 tonne of cocoa per hectare from about 1,000 hectares now productive, while the trees planted in Ben Tre can provide 1.5 tonnes of beans per hectare, experts said.
Foreign traders said Vietnam could provide good quality fermented cocoa with an output of 2 tonnes per hectare but the yield is still small compared with Malaysia, Asia's top cocoa grinder, which harvests up to 5 tonnes per hectare.