Coffee output to near last crop’s yield

Nguyen Nam Hai, deputy chairman of the association, said the annual coffee crop would enter the harvest season in October or November.

If the weather is favourable this year, Central Highlands’ provinces, which account for more than 90 per cent of the country’s coffee cultivation area, will have 1.3 million tonnes of coffee.

Last year, the region encountered a severe drought but this year coffee gardens have had enough water for irrigation.

But because coffee farms have many old trees, coffee output is expected to remain about the same last year, he said.

Coffee prices in the domestic market reached a peak in January when a kilo of coffee sold for VND47,000.

The price was VND43,000-43,500 a kilo on May 19 depending on locality, a reduction of VND200 from the preceding day.

Vietnam’s coffee exports in the 2016-17 crop (which ran from October last year to September this year) will reach 1.4-1.5 million tonnes, Hai said.

As of April 30, the country exported more than 960,000 tonnes of coffee, he said.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, enterprises exported 1.79 million tonnes of coffee for a value of US$3.36 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of nearly 34 per cent in volume and 24 per cent in value.

The average export price was US$1,872 a tonne, a reduction of 6 percent over 2015.

The average export price reached US$2,267 a tonne in the first quarter of this year, up 33 per cent over the same period last year, according to the ministry’s figure.

The country earned US$1.34 billion from exporting 592,000 tonnes of coffee in the first quarter, an increase of 19 percent in value but a reduction of 11 percent in volume.