Farmers in Vietnam, the world's top robusta producer, released beans to cash in on rising prices ahead of the country's biggest holiday, traders said on Thursday. Traders quoted robusta grade 2, 5-pct black and broken at discounts of $65-$70 a tonne to the London ICE March contract, slightly tightening from $60-$70 a tonne earlier this week.
The ICE price climbed 1.9 percent to close near a two-month high on Wednesday, pushing the domestic price in Vietnam on Thursday to 46,200 dong ($2.04) per kg, much higher than the 33,000-34,000 dong during the same period last year. "Despite a harvesting delay due to rainfall, farmers are actually selling more than usual as they need cash for Tet and as prices are attractive," said Phan Hung Anh, deputy director of Anh Minh Company in Daklak, Vietnam's top growing province.
Tet, or the Lunar New Year, is Vietnam's biggest public holiday which will last from January 26 to February 1 this year. "With farmers selling beans, exporters have enough stocks for export orders which have started kicking in after the New Year holiday," Hung Anh said. Vietnam is expected to have exported 1.79 million tonnes (29.83 million 60-kg bags) of coffee in 2016, up 33.7 percent from a year ago, the government said last month, while traders expect coffee exports in January could hit 180,000 tonnes.