HÀ NỘI – Đắk Lắk’s 6th Coffee Festival will kick off at the beginning of next month, aiming to attract record local participation and to showcase the area’s economic potential, province leaders confirmed at a press conference held in the capital on Monday.

Nguyễn Hải Ninh, vice chairman of the province’s People’s Committee and deputy head of the festival’s organising board, said that this year’s event will host more activities than previous years, as it will include a gongs culture festival and a conference on investment promotion for the central highland area.

The festival’s opening ceremony will take place the evening of March 10, with the theme “Quintessence Convergence – Identity Promoting – Connecting for Development”. The closing ceremony will take place March 13, titled “Buôn Ma Thuột: See You Again”.

The ceremonies will be live broadcast on VTV1, VTV5 and VTV8 of the Việt Nam Television Network as well as TV and radio channels in Đắk Lắk and other central highland provinces.

Various gong performances and traditional area ethnic group ceremonies will be organised around Buôn Ma Thuột City and Buôn Đôn District.

The 4th conference on investment promotion for the Vietnamese central highlands will be held on March 11, expecting to draw 500 representatives from domestic and foreign agencies.

Between March 8 and 13, there will be various cultural activities around Buôn Ma Thuột City, including a culinary street, a street festival (March 10), an elephant race, a boat race (March 12), a wooden statue carving contest (March 8-13) that will gather 60 artisans from central province of Khánh Hòa and central highlands; a photo contest featuring local cafe culture and a gongs space; a coffee harvesting competition and free coffee will be available to tourists in the city.

Hundreds of gong artists from around the country and other countries like Cambodia, Laos and Romania will join the gongs festival on March 10.

The local tourism sector will promote various ecological tours associating coffee and gong cultural values.

“Our aim is promoting trademark ‘Buôn Ma Thuột Coffee,’ Đắk Lắk’s coffee in particular and Việt Nam’s coffee in general to the international market,” noted Điểu Kre, deputy standing head of Central Highlands’ Steering Board.

The country’s coffee exports reached a 1.2-1.5 million tonne yearly average over the past ten years. Việt Nam now ranks 2nd in the world for exporting coffee, following Brazil.

“The event also aims to enhance awareness toward preserving and developing the identity of local ethnic groups, especially the gongs space culture, which was named in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.”

The event will also lure investors to trading and tourism projects in the area, he said.

The province chose Phùng Bảo Ngọc Vân, a top-ten Miss Việt Nam 2016 contestant and winner of the PR Beauty title at a charity programme during the contest, as an ambassador for the event. – VNS