Vietnam's October coffee exports jump

Vietnam's October coffee shipments leapt 54 percent from a year ago, but traders said the sharp rise reflected old contract volumes and that trading was effectively on hold, waiting for falling London prices to turn. October is the first month of Vietnam's 2009/2010 coffee crop year, but exports mainly came from stock carried over from the previous season, as harvesting will not peak until late next month.
"I think it reflects what they didn't deliver in June to September. This is not because they've signed a lot of contracts. This is still the old crop," a dealer at an international trading house who deals with Vietnamese beans said. "For the moment, you can't even put your hands on the new crop," he said, adding that if rains come, fresh bean arrivals may be delayed until December from late November.
The rainy season is due to end this month or during the first week of November in the Central Highlands coffee belt. The government's General Statistics Office said Vietnam's coffee exports surged to an estimated 1 million bags, or 60,000 kilograms, up from a revised 48,000 tonnes last month.
The revision from 45,000 tonnes brought coffee exports in the 2008/09 crop year to 1.134 million tonnes, or 18.91 million 60-kg bags, up 16.2 percent from a year earlier. Robusta stood at 24,000 dong ($1.34) per kg on Tuesday in Vietnam's key growing province of Daklak, down from 24,500-25,200 dong a week ago. "Not much trading is taking place because exporters see prices falling in London," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said.
London November robusta futures gained $2 to end at $1,365 a tonne on Monday, but were still far below the close of $1,461 a tonne a week ago. Another trader said a brace of deals signed by local exporter Intimex to sell 200,000 tonnes of coffee to global traders Armajaro and Louis Dreyfus may inflate domestic prices if it starts buying locally at the same time as other Vietnamese exporters.
Intimex committed to shipping the 200,000 tonnes between now and September 2010, but gave no specific dates. "The deals aren't having much of an impact on current market trading since buyers will not take away the volume immediately," the Ho Chi Minh City trader said. "Prices will go up if many compete to buy the beans at the same time." Vietnam is forecast to produce 19 million bags from this upcoming harvest, slightly down from 19.5 million bags in the previous 2008/2009 crop, according to Reuters polls.