BANGALORE: India’s coffee exports for the year 2008-09, ending on Wednesday have shown a 21% decline in volume terms. Exports stood at 1.8 lakh tonnes and that compared with 2.3 tonnes a year-ago period, according to initial data from Coffee Board. The data is available till September 29, 2009.
Besides reporting a drop in volumes, exports were also down 33% during the period under review in dollar terms at $396.52 million against $588.2 million in 2007-08. However, per unit realisation was marginally up 4% at Rs 1.09 lakh per tonne compared to Rs 1.05 lakh tonnes in 2007-08.
“Country’s coffee exports have taken the impact of the global economic crisis on the chin. With major markets for soluble (instant) coffee like eastern Europe showing a marked slowdown Indian coffee exports have not been too very encouraging,” said Ramesh Rajah, president of Coffee Exporters Association. Mr Rajah said that global coffee prices had seen an uptick notably of washed Arabicas. Cost of washed Arabicas and Robustas, he said, had been on the rise over the last few years driven by factors like non-availability of labour.
According to Ajoy Thippaiah, chairman of the Karnataka Planters’ Association (KPA) the unseasonal rains between September-November last year impacted availability of coffee beans. “The post-blossom estimate in 2008 was around 2.9 lakh tonnes but we had only around 2.7 lakh tonnes,” he said. For the coffee year 2009-2010, Coffee Board’s post-blossom estimate stands at 3.1 lakh tonnes.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated that global coffee production in 2009-2010 would be around 127.4 million bags with usage (consumption) pegged at 132.2 million bags. It would be pertinent to mention here that Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer is slated to report a nine-million bag shortage in 2009-2010 with production pegged around 39 million bags against the normal 46 million bags.
It is also estimated that Brazilian output would see a re-bound in 2010-2011 with production touching 52 million bags.
Source : The Economic Times