Prices of coffee hit record to VND33,200 per kilo last week in central highlands Dak Lak province, the coffee hub of Vietnam, the Labor reported last Saturday.
This is the highest price in Vietnam since 1996, and it is nearly equal to the prices of 1995, when it reached records at VND33,000 or VND35,000 a kilo.
Van Thanh Huy, chairman of the Vietnam Cocoa and Coffee Association (Vicofa), said the price hike was attributed by a sharper-than-expected fall in output in Vietnam, the world’s biggest robusta coffee producer. Bad weather has been blamed for the low output.
Vietnam was forecast to harvest one or 1.1 million tons of coffee, but the actual yield was only 850,000 tons, Huy said, adding that Dak Lak’s output alone, fell from 435,000 tons to only 350,000 tons.
Meanwhile, analysts predict a shortage of 80,000 or 112,000 tons of robusta beans this year, pushing export prices of the coffee up to US$2,250 a ton in London market, and US$2,150 or US$2,200 a ton, FOB, in Ho Chi Minh City seaport.
Le Duc Thong, director of the Dak Lak-based 2/9 Import and Export Company, said hoarding coffee among farmers causing thin supplies is another reason for the price soar.
Currently, local companies have managed to buy only 70 per cent of the volume of coffee they had bought compared with the same period of last year.
Analysts predict the prices will jump beyond VND35,000 per kilo in the near time to come.
Vietnamese companies exported 150,000 tons of coffee, valued at US$259.7 million in January of 2008, down 38.5 per cent on year in volume and 25.8 per cent in value. (Labor)
Vietnamese
