Colombia, the world's biggest producer of washed arabica, should produce slightly more coffee next year, but exports should stay at the same level as this year, an official from the Colombian Coffee Growers' Federation said.
Next year's output should rise to 11.5 million 60-kilo bags, compared with 11.2 million to 11.3 million bags from January to December this year, a senior federation official said late on Thursday, asking not to be named. Exports next year should stay within the same range of 10.2-10.3 million bags as this year.
The slight increase in output would be the result of expected better weather, the official said.
The federation hopes to boost sales to the United States to 3.9 million bags from 3.7 million bags now and to increase exports to Japan, where Colombia has about a quarter of the coffee market, to 1.6 million bags from 1.5 million.
This should compensate falling sales to Europe, where arabica coffee has been losing ground to the robusta variety. Colombia is the world's second-largest coffee exporter, after Brazil.