Vietnamese coffee exporters fear profit drop next year

Tag : coffee
Vietnam's coffee reached a record two million U.S. dollars for the2008 crop but estimate for a sharp profit decline will be likely tobe in the 2009 crop, The Youth reported on Monday, citing thesource taken from the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association(Vicofa).

The 2008 coffee season starts from October 2007 and September 2008.Local coffee businesses exported about one million tons of coffeein the 2008 coffee season, said Luong Van Tu, chairman of VietnamCoffee and Cocoa Association (Vicofa).

Such high record profit is attributed to the soaring global coffeeprices reached a ten-year high in 2008. On average, the priceincreased to 1,937 U.S. dollars a ton on average in 2008 from 1,463U.S. dollars in 2007, 2.5 times higher than those in the late1990s, according to Vicofa.

Vietnam, the world's second largest coffee exporter after Brazil,has seen steady increase in export revenues for the past threeyears from 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2006 and 1.8 billion U.S.dollars in 2007, according to statistics from Vicofa.

However, Vietnamese coffee businesses were just "lucky"this year since the coffee season wrapped up before the globaleconomic downturn expanded, said analysts at the conference.

The global fear of economic recession has driven foreign importersto cut orders and prices. The Ministry of Industry and Trade alsoforecast lower coffee export revenue next year but it did not givefigures.

The average export price has already fallen to 1,600 U.S. dollars aton but it may drop further to as low as those of 2006- 2007 level,said Do Ha Nam, Vicofa's vice chairman.

It would be better to store coffee until June- July next year, whenthe world price could recover, said a local coffee exporter.

Source: Xinhua