The sixth Buon Ma Thuot coffee festival and the Central Highlands gong culture festival will take place in the Central Highland province of Dak Lak from March 8^th-13^th.

The Steering Committee for the Central Highlands and Dak Lak provincial People’s Committee held a press conference in Hanoi on February 6^th to introduce the events with the theme “Converging quintessence – Promoting identity – Linking to develop”.

The gong performance by Jrai people in the buffalo-eating festival. (Source: VNA)

The provincial coffee festival and its gong culture festival would be combined and introduced as first of this kind in this year.

Activities as part of the festivals include an elephant festival, a gong performance, traditional rituals of ethnic minority groups, and a wood statues carving contest.

Numerous trade and investment promotion activities will be held, including a workshop on developing the Vietnamese coffee sector amid climate change and international integration.

The Central Highlands includes Kon Tum, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Dak Nong and Lam Dong provinces.

Dak Lak has the largest coffee-growing area in the country with over 200,000 hectares and a total yield of 450,000 tonnes of beans, accounting for around 40 per cent of the whole country’s output. The Dak Lak coffee has been exported to over 80 countries and territories.

The cultural space of gongs, possessed by the locality and the entire Central Highlands, was recognised as an Oral Masterpiece and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.

Previously, the coffee festival takes place in March while the gong culture festival opens in October./.

VNF/VNA