HANOI/BANDAR LAMPUNG, (Indonesia): Coffee prices in Vietnam continued to inch up this week on tighter supplies as farmers had run down their inventories, while premiums in Indonesia dropped slightly, traders said on Thursday.

Farmers in the Central Highlands, Vietnam’s largest coffee-growing area, were selling beans for 120,000-122,000 dong ($4.71-$4.79) per kg, up slightly from last week’s 119,000-120,200 dong. Vietnam exported 902,000 metric tons of coffee in the first half of this year, down 10.6% from a year earlier, government data showed. Coffee export revenue in the same period, however, rose 34.5% to $3.2 billion. “The price was up slightly due to weak export data in June,” said a trader in the coffee belt.

“However, with the depleted stocks as of now, monthly exports will keep falling until around November when new supplies from the 2024/25 crop season come.”

In the first nine months of the crop season 2023/24, Vietnam exported 1.25 million metric tons of coffee, official data showed. Traders estimated total exports of this crop season would reach up to 1.5 million metric tons, 20% lower than the previous one.

“Domestic businesses are no longer interested in beans from farmers as the prices are too high. Activities can only be robust again when prices fall below 100,000 dong per kg like in mid-May,” said Nguyen Ngoc Quynh, deputy chief of Mercantile Exchange of Vietnam (MXV).