HO CHI MINH CITY – The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association Coffee, or VICOFA sees this year’s country’s output down 15% from the 2012-13 crop due to unfavourable weather conditions and a high proportion of old trees with low yields.
In the last crop, drought and diseases had seriously affected productivity and quality of coffee in plantation areas. The situation would continue with this crop, said Nguyen Nam Hai, VICOFA ‘s deputy chairman, at a conference in Ho Chi Minh City.
Currently, about 25 per cent of coffee cultivation area has old trees that have low yield and unstable quality, according to Hai.
Viet Nam’s coffee exports from the 2012-13 crop – from October last year to September this year – have fallen in terms of both volume and value, with 1.4 million tonnes being exported for US$3.03 billion, Hai said.
This represented a reduction of 11.2 per cent in volume and 10.3 per cent in value over the previous crop, he added.
Hai said coffee firms were in trouble because of calling prices.
VICOFA ‘s chairman Luong Van Tu said “coffee prices have reached a four-year low in the world market.”
In the domestic market, the price has dropped to more than VND30,000 a kg, the lowest in the last three years, he said.
He attributed the fall to supply being higher than demand and many coffee speculators shifting their investment to other sector.
VICOFA suggested that the Government consider allowing the sector to stockpile 200,000-300,000 tonnes of coffee from the 2013-14 crop to prevent prices from falling further in the domestic market, negatively affecting coffee growers.
Source: [via]
