Coffee export for the month of May surges by 42 percent

02 Jun 2011 Evaluate

India’s coffee exports surged by 41.77 per cent in May this year to 80,367 tonnes on the back of robust global demand. As per the Coffee Board data, shipments of the brew stood at 56,690 tonnes in the year ago period. The numbers are quiet encouraging in the backdrop of a recent report of USDA, that stated that India's coffee exports are expected to decline by 16.7 per cent to 2,40,000 tonnes in the 2011-12 crop year (October-September) due to lower production and tight carry-over stocks.

USDA has said that coffee exports may dip from the current year’s record level due to lower international coffee prices, which could reduce importers' demand for Indian coffee. However, if international demand remains strong, exports could increase at the expense of domestic consumption.

The good surge in the export can be attributed to the strong global prices that have prompted foreign buyers to increase their purchases of Indian coffee as they look for new supply options. The total export realization rose by more than two-fold to $244.41 million in May 2011 as compared to $113.42 in the corresponding period of the previous year, while ,export earnings in rupee terms rose by 89.21 per cent to Rs 1,008.51 crore from Rs 532.99 crore in the period under review.

The per tonne value realization for Indian coffee was higher in May, 2011, at Rs 1,35,442 per tonne, compared to Rs 94,018 per tonne in the year-ago period. In the first eight months of the coffee year 2010-11 (October-September), the shipments of coffee rose by 44.07 per cent to 2,47,372 tonnes as against 1,71,704 tonnes in the year-ago period. In the January-May, 2011 period, exports of the brew were up by 42.58 per cent to 1,81,308 tonnes as compared to 1,27,160 tonnes in the same period year ago.

India largely exports coffee to Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Russian Federation and Spain. Besides that, there is some positive development in Coffee exports to Japan, the world’s fourth largest coffee consumer, which may be willing to take a more positive view of Indian coffee; this is after a controversy over lindane residue about five years ago led to a drop in exports from about 6,000 tonnes to less than 1,700 tonnes at present. At a recent event organized by the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan, the hosts said that a period of five years was perhaps a good enough time for lindane - whose use has been banned since - to be flushed out of the Indian ecosystem.

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