Vietnamese coffee beans have risen to a new record of 40,100 dong ($2.5) per kg on Monday, breaking its previous life high in 1995, after funds poured more money into soft commodities in London last week. Vietnamese beans edged up from their 1995 record of 40,000 dong per kg after the benchmark May contract on the London futures market closed $12 up at $2,735 a tonne last on Friday.
The contract hit $2,813, the highest level for the second month since July 1995. Supply of robusta beans has been tight as Vietnam, the world's top producer of the variety, was holding back its stock after ending the harvest in January while Indonesia, its regional rival producer, is expected to start the main harvest next month.
Discounts to London May contracts have widened to $130-$140 a tonne this week from $110 to $120 last week, putting bids for Vietnamese robusta grade 2, 5 percent black and broken at around $2,600 a tonne, on a free-on-board basis.
The bids compared with exporters' offers of $2,630-$2,635 a tonne, well above the previous record of $2,393.95 a tonne in 1995, according to industry reports. "Vietnam is willing to sell and at these prices exporters can sell a bit more of their stocks but not all," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said. He said foreign firms were buying slowly, given the bullish market now driven by investment funds' buying.