Discounts for Vietnamese coffee widened on Thursday as harvesting picked up in sunny weather and on improved crop outlook, while premiums for Indonesian coffee narrowed on declining stocks, traders said. Sunny days this week have been supporting harvest in the Central Highlands coffee belt of Vietnam, the world's largest robusta producer, and the quicker pace of plucking has in turn bolstered domestic purchases, traders said.
"Foreign-invested firms have been buying in domestic markets, while exports have yet to pick up," said a trader with a European company in Ho Chi Minh City. Rising local prices have also led farmers to offload more stocks with robusta beans rising to between 44.4 million and 44.9 million dong ($1,981-$2,004) a tonne on Thursday from 44.0-44.4 million dong a week earlier.
January robusta futures settled up 1.3 percent at $2,163 per tonne on Wednesday. Vietnamese robusta beans grade 2, 5 percent black and broken were traded at discounts of $60-$70 a tonne to the January contract, widening from discounts of $30-$40 a tonne last Thursday. Beans grade 1 screen 16, similar to the Sumatran coffee, were quoted at par with the January contract to a discount of $10/tonne, with the spread between grade 1 and grade 2 widening to around $50, compared with $45 early this month, due to thin supply.
"The discounts are wider because of fundamentals, as the crop output may not drop as much as expected," said another trader in Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association has cuts its 2016/2017 output loss estimate to 10-20 percent from 20-25 percent. In Indonesia, stocks fell further and premiums for robusta beans narrowed, traders said.