Vietnam’s August coffee exports drop 49% as stockpiles dwindle

Coffee shipments from Vietnam, the world’s second-largest exporter after Brazil, may have fallen 49 percent to 40,000 metric tons in August from the year before after accelerating sales earlier in the year thinned stocks.

The preliminary figures, which may be revised, compare with exports of 78,000 tons in August 2010 and 53,000 tons last month, according to data from the General Statistics Office, which also released shipment figures for rice and rubber today. Coffee exports in the first eight months of the year were forecast at 958,000 tons, 11 percent higher than a year earlier.

Vietnam is the largest shipper of robusta beans, used to make instant drinks. Robusta in London jumped 24 percent in the first five months of this year before sliding in June, according to Bloomberg data. High global prices spurred Vietnamese farmers to sell 90 percent of the latest crop by May, according to a Bloomberg survey that month.

“Coffee exports have slowed these days since there is not much coffee left,” said Bui Hung Manh, head of the business department at Tay Nguyen Coffee Investment, Import and Export Co., the country’s biggest shipper. “Domestic coffee prices were so good this year, reaching record highs above 50,000 dong ($2.40) a kilo, which prompted people to sell faster than in previous crops.”

The price of coffee in Vietnam’s main producing region of Dak Lak reached 51,600 dong per kilogram on June 1, the highest since at least 2006, Bloomberg data shows.

Vietnam, the world’s second-largest rice exporter, may ship 600,000 tons this month, compared with 615,000 tons in August last year and 652,000 tons last month, according to statistics office figures. In the January-to-August period, rice exports may have totaled 5.31 million tons, 6.5 percent more than the same period last year, the office said.
Sufficient Stockpiles

Demand for Vietnamese rice has increased in traditional and new markets this year, the Vietnam Food Association said on July 15. Vietnam had signed export contracts for 6.4 million tons this year as of Aug. 23, up 9.6 percent from the year-ago period, the government said in a statement on its website today.

Vietnamese companies currently hold more than 1.3 million tons of rice in stockpiles, sufficient to meet export contract demand for the remainder of the year, according to the statement. Vietnam is targeting 7.4 million tons of exports this year, Diep Kinh Tan, deputy minister of agriculture and rural development, told Bloomberg last month.

Rubber shipments from the world’s fourth-biggest exporter may total 85,000 tons this month, down 18 percent from August last year, according to statistics office figures. Exports in the January-to-August period may have risen 5.6 percent from a year earlier to 454,000 tons.

Supplies from Vietnam may decline 9.4 percent in the third quarter as farmers delay latex tapping after a spread of leaf disease, the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries said in an e-mailed report July 28. Rubber exports may total 834,500 tons this year, the agriculture ministry said in its July forecast report, compared with 782,200 tons in 2010, according to General Statistics Office figures.
Source Bloomberg

Tags: Vietnam Coffee, vietnam coffee exports, Vietnam coffee exports 2011