Vietnam coffee exports fall

Vietnam’s coffee exports this month fell an estimated 1.96 percent from last November to 1.33 million bags, the government said on Thursday, as foreign firms did not buy much on fears of supply problems due to low stocks.

Vietnam’s coffee exports this month fell an estimated 1.96 percent from last November to 1.33 million bags, the government said on Thursday, as foreign firms did not buy much on fears of supply problems due to low stocks.

The estimate of lower shipment, plus a sharp downward revision for October loading to 57,000 tons from 70,000 tons the government previously estimated, confirmed estimates by traders of a smaller-than-usual carryover stock.

The actual volume of Vietnamese coffee hitting the market and concerns that prolonged rains delayed the harvest and slowed the process of cherry ripening had contributed to lifting London prices to a two-year high earlier this month.

Coffee exports in October and November, the first two months of the 2010/2011 season, were estimated to reach 2.29 million bags, nearly flat from 2.28 million bags in the same period in the 2009/2010 crop year, the General Statistics Office said.

Traders said most of the beans loaded in October and more than half of the November shipment could come from the 2009/2010 harvest, suggesting an output of 20.58 million bags, based on Reuters calculations. One bag has 60 kg of beans.

Stock carried over from the 2008/2009 season stood at 130,000 tons, while domestic consumption requires 70,000 tons a year. The result is well above a median estimate of 19.33 million bags for the 2009/2010 crop in a Reuters poll of 12 traders last month.

In September and October, foreign buyers did not buy much of Vietnamese coffee as traders said the stock left over for loading in the first months of the new 2010/2011 crop fell to around 60,000 tons from 130,000 tons in the previous crop year.

The coffee crop year in Vietnam, the world’s second-largest producer after Brazil, lasts from October through September, starting with an early harvesting. The harvest ends in January. Vietnamese farmers are expected to accelerate harvesting coffee and finish the process during December in most of the country’s key growing areas after rains ended, farmers and a producer said on Wednesday.

November shipment brought coffee exports from Vietnam to 1,053,000 tons, or 17.55 million bags, in the first 11 months of 2010, up 1.5 percent from the same period last year, the statistics office said in its monthly report.-Reuters

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