Trading in Vietnamese coffee was lacklustre this week as buyers waited on the sidelines ahead of the arrival of the country's new crop, which is expected to begin in about two months, traders said on Tuesday. Harvesting of the 2016/2017 crop in Vietnam, the world's largest robusta producer, will start late October in the Central Highlands, with fresh beans expected to load early November.
Robusta prices in Daklak, Vietnam's top growing province, eased to 38,400-38,800 dong ($1.72-$1.74) per kg on Tuesday, from 38,500-38,900 last Tuesday. "There've been some transactions, but overall the market is still quiet," a trader at a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City said, adding Vietnamese robustas grade 2, 5 percent black and broken beans were traded at a discount of $20 a tonne to the ICE November contract.
The ICE November robusta contract ended 1.2 percent higher at $1,819 a tonne on Monday, but has dropped 0.66 percent in the week ended August 29. Other dealers said the variety traded at discounts of $5-$10 a tonne, compared with prices that ranged from at par with London to a discount of $5 last Tuesday. Vietnam's coffee crop year lasts between October and September, but the government uses calendar year figures for its statistics.
The government said on Friday that exports rose 38.7 percent from a year ago in the first eight months this year to an estimated 1.26 million tonnes. A separate report over the weekend on a government website cited a projection by industry body Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association as saying exports in 2016 could reach 1.5 million tonnes, up from its forecast in April of 1 million tonnes exports. Coffee exports this year are expected to be 12 percent higher than the 1.34 million tonnes shipped in 2015. Revenue from exports last year stood at $2.67 billion, down 25 percent from 2014, government data showed.
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