Four Central American coffee growing nations supported on Monday a US proposal to reform the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) to boost its relevance in the market.
But the four nations - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala - believe that time is too short to renegotiate a new mandate before the current one expires and have decided to back an extension of the current ICO mission.
"There are various things in which we coincide with the proposal from the United States," El Salvador Coffee Council Director Ricardo Espitia told Reuters after the four nations met in the Costa Rican capital.
The United States has called for the ICO to be reformed into a "coffee observatory" - gathering information useful to the market but not regulating global trade, as it once did.
While some Central American growers continue to harbour hope the ICO may some day return to its previous functions, including handing out coffee quotas, most in the industry admit that is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
But Costa Rican Coffee Institute board member Ronald Peters said the group decided to back extending the current ICO mission rather than seek a renegotiated International Coffee Agreement because of the delays such negotiations would likely face in the US Congress. The current agreement, in place since 2001, expires in September 2007.
Peters also said the Central American growers want to see the ICO force its consumer country members to provide more detailed data on consumption to complement the export and production data from growers.
Nicaragua, a fifth Central American coffee growing nation, did not attend the meeting in Costa Rica, but is expected to support the regional position.
Monday's meeting was one of a series of among smaller groups of member nations ahead of the next ICO gathering in London in September.