Vietnam coffee exports seen up

Vietnam will ship 117,000 tonnes (1.95 million 60-kg bags) of coffee in October-November, the first two months of the new crop year, up 30 percent from the same period last year, although the industry has forecast total 2005-06 exports will fall by around a fifth.
The world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil shipped 90,000 tonnes of coffee in the same 2004 period, according to government data. A General Statistics Office report on Thursday revised up October's coffee exports to 67,000 tonnes from estimate of 50,000 tonnes.
Most of the exports are of the robusta variety used for making soluble coffee. Vietnam, the world's top robusta producer, was estimated to ship another 50,000 tonnes of beans this month, bringing January-November exports to 801,000 tonnes, down 5.8 percent from a year.
A Ho Chi Minh City-based trader said his firm had started getting coffee from the new harvest, but shipments in the last two months still contained both coffee from the previous crop ending in September and new crop beans.
"The volume of new beans remains scant and the quality is very poor," he told Reuters after wrapping up a crop survey in the Central Highlands coffee belt.
On Wednesday, coffee farmers in the central highland province of Daklak said they would sell a large portion of the fresh beans to local buying agents on domestic markets next month.
The buying agents often clean and dry the beans before selling them to exporters. Farmers outside Buon Ma Thuot, Daklak's capital in the heart of Vietnam's main coffee area, said the harvest this year will be shorter than usual, ending next month instead of January due to a drought that has cut yields.
Officials said Daklak's output would fall 24-30 percent to 220,000-250,000 tonnes for this crop, from 330,000 tonnes in the previous season.
Daklak produces a third of Vietnam's coffee. On Tuesday, the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association said exports would fall 16-22 percent to 650,000-700,000 tonnes in the current season ending September 2006.