Vietnam sees coffee sales up 34 percent in early 2005-06

Vietnam would export 201,000 tonnes (3.35 million 60-kg bags) of coffee in October-December, the first quarter of the crop year ending next September, up 34 percent from a year, the government said on Monday.
The world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil loaded 150,000 tonnes of coffee in the same 2004 period, government data show.
The country's coffee crop year lasts from October through September, with a four-month harvest ending in January.
A report from the General Statistics Office revised up the coffee exports last month to 64,000 tonnes from 50,000 tonnes estimated.
Most of the exports are of the robusta variety used mainly for making soluble coffee. December exports of the commodity from Vietnam, the world's top robusta producer, would rise to 70,000 tonnes, bringing the shipment in the 2005 calendar year to 885,000 tonnes, down 9.2 percent from a year, the statistics agency said.
Coffee export earnings this year would rise 13.1 percent from last year to $725 million.
The export price range for Vietnamese robusta grade 2, 5 percent black and broken firmed this year to between $630 and $1,220 a tonne, free-on-board Saigon Port, from last year's range of $480-$700 per tonne.
Prolonged rains in the Central Highlands coffee belt in recent weeks have slowed the harvest from peaking and prevented growers from drying beans, raising quality concerns as beans ferment and turn black when kept indoors for too long.
Two farmers in Daklak, Vietnam's key growing province, said on state-run Voice of Vietnam radio on Monday that the rain forced them to use dryers for processing, which will raise production cost. They said the coffee quality would remain unstable, as the equipment could not dry out all the beans properly.
Last month, the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association estimated exports would fall 16-22 percent to 650,000-700,000 tonnes in the current season ending September 2006, as a drought hit production in 2005.
Foreign traders expected the harvest to bring in 840,000 tonnes, or 14 million bags. Vietnam sells mainly cheap robusta. Only 13,000 tonnes of its 834,000 tonnes exported in the last crop were of the aromatic, more expensive arabica variety. The Agriculture Ministry has planned coffee exports in calendar 2006 at 750,000 tonnes. Following is a breakdown of Vietnam's coffee exports (in tonnes) in the current crop year, versus a year.