Vietnam's coffee exports in the first nine months of the current crop year will jump 49.2 percent from a year ago to 17.6 million bags, the government said on Monday. The General Statistics Office estimated coffee exports from October 2006 through June 2007 at 1.056 million tonnes.
While shipment this month would rise 20.9 percent from last June to 75,000 tonnes, or 1.25 million bags. The monthly estimate brought January to June shipments from Vietnam, the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, to 13.87 million bags, or 63.8 percent above a year earlier.
Export earnings from coffee, the bulk of which is robusta, are estimated up 108.9 percent from the same period last year to $1.22 billion, the General Statistics Office said. Prices of Vietnamese robusta grade 2, 5 percent black and broken beans are quoted at around $1,850 a tonne this week, free on board Saigon Port, compared with about $1,560 a month ago.
The statistics office revised down January-May shipments to 757,000 tonnes, or 12.62 million bags, from 12.93 million bags previously, but gave no reason for the revision. A Reuters poll in January showed the latest crop produced 19.4 million bags, while Vietnam had 0.8 million bags in stock from the previous crop. Domestic consumption remained stable at 1 million bags.