While the specialty coffee industry was developing from the 1980s onward, the commodity coffee industry experienced a dramatic rise driven by Vietnamese coffee.
The catalyst for this rise was the slogan of the policy “Đổi Mới,” adopted at the Communist Party Congress of Vietnam in December 1986.
“Đổi Mới,” meaning “renovation,” aimed at introducing a market economy while maintaining the socialist system — a fundamental economic reform.
After the end of the Vietnam War, the country became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and implemented a centralized planned economy. However, this system significantly reduced efficiency, decreased production, and led to economic stagnation.
The Đổi Mới policy was introduced to revive the declining economy.
The Vietnamese government aimed to transform coffee into a key agricultural sector and decided to concentrate investment resources into coffee production.
That same year, under the initiative of the military and a coalition of enterprises affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture (LH-XN-CPVN), the first National Coffee Congress was held.
It was also the year when Japan’s Nissho Iwai Co., Ltd. (now Sojitz) became the first private company from a Western nation to establish a representative office in Hanoi.
In 1987, Vietnam enacted the Foreign Investment Law, which allowed the establishment of foreign companies.
This later laid the foundation for the entry of foreign-capital enterprises.
In 1988, a decree was issued recognizing the activities of private enterprises.
That same year, a new system was introduced under which farmland was distributed from state-owned companies to individual farmers, marking the beginning of the shift from public to private land ownership.
Many farmers began cultivating coffee at their own farm as a result.
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