MILAN – According to the monthly report of Vietnam’s General Statistics Office (GSO), coffee shipments from the world’s top Robusta player are expected to fall by 19.4% in May to an estimated 170,000 tonnes of 2.83 million bags. Traders had forecast coffee exports this month at between 150,000-220,000 tonnes.
The office also revised downwards April coffee exports to 210,750 tonnes from a previous estimate of 220,000 tons.
Cumulative exports from the beginning of the 2013714 crop year would reach a total of 1.26 million tonnes, up 15.6% from a year ago, according to GSO.
In other news, Vietnamese coffee growers are slowing down sales as prices fall amid slow demand, in hopes that prices recover back above the 40,000 dong per kg level, traders said on Tuesday.
Farmers are holding onto stocks from the 2013/2014 harvest, not wanting to sell at prices that have dropped below that key value, according to two traders in Ho Chi Minh City quoted by Reuters.
