Asian coffee markets remained muted ahead of an expected harvest season in Vietnam next month, while Indonesia focussed only on existing contracts, traders said on Thursday. Tracking losses in London prices, farmers in Daklak, Vietnam's main coffee-growing province, are selling beans at 43,400 dong-43,500 dong ($1.91) per kg, slightly down from last week's 43,500 dong-43,800 dong, traders said.
London ICE January futures on Wednesday fell as much as 2.47 percent to $1,932 a tonne, posting their biggest intraday low in more than a week, Thomson Reuters data showed. Traders quoted the 5 percent black and broken grade 2 robusta at a discount of $20-$60 to the January contract, while a few deals were capped on weak demand and low supply at the end of Vietnam's October-September crop season.
Rains in storm-prone Vietnam may delay coffee harvest by one to three weeks, a trader for an exporter said, but another trader for an imports firm said harvest should be on time. They said Vietnam is expected to enter its main harvest season next month, when traders hope to see new contracts secured. Vietnam exported 1.48 million tonnes (24.7 million 60-kg bags) of coffee in 2016/2017, down 14.9 percent from the previous crop year, customs data showed, as unusually long rains in December last year hurt crop.