Vietnam's coffee exports in the first seven months of the current crop year would jump 58 percent compared with a year earlier to 14.67 million bags, the government said on Wednesday.
The General Statistics Office estimated coffee exports from October 2006 through April 2007 would hit 880,000 tonnes. Shipment this month alone would rise 33 percent from last April to 120,000 tonnes, or 2 million bags.
The monthly estimate brought the coffee volume shipped during January to April 2007 from Vietnam, the world's second-largest producer after Brazil, to 10.93 million bags, up 84.3 percent versus a year earlier.
Export earnings of the item, the bulk of which is the robusta variety, are estimated to rise 134.8 percent on the same period last year to $947 million, the General Statistics Office said. Vietnam exported 9.3 million bags between October 2005 and April 2006. Key buyers included trading firms and roasters in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Japan.
A kilogram of robusta was offered this week at 24,100 dong ($1.49) Tuesday in Vietnam's central highland city of Buon Ma Tuot, compared with 23,000 dong ($1.43) a week ago and 21,900-22,000 dong in early April. Prices have risen 44 percent from mid-April 2006, when a kg of robusta stood at 16,700 dong.
Vietnam's coffee crop year lasts between October and September. Since the harvest of a bumper crop ended in January. The harvest ending in January was 11 percent higher than the previous crop, totalling at least 900,000 tonnes or 15 million bags, traders said. One bag contains 60 kg of coffee beans.