Yunnan sets up national coffee trading center

Southwest China's Yunnan Province on Wednesday announced construction of a national coffee center in Pu'er City.

The project, in the hands of Pu'er local government and Yunnan Jinyuan Flower Industry Co., Ltd., will create a trading platform to reduce the impact of global price fluctuations, said Yang Weidong, vice mayor of Pu'er.

A cooperation between a Pu'er trader, a warehouse in the provincial capital of Kunming and three freight centers in primary coffee areas, the center will provide technological and financial services for everyone involved in the industry.

In an area celebrated for tea, Pu'er's coffee struggles for recognition, a situation complicated by global price fluctuations squeezing growers' profits.

Yunnan's beans are used as raw material for most of the world's big coffee brands, but lack the profile to be sold in their own right, leaving the industry at the mercy of the brands.

Coffee in Yunnan covers more than 120,000 hectares with an annual output of more than 90,000 tonnes, more than 98 percent of national coffee production.

About forty percent of Yunnan coffee is from Pu'er.