India’s coffee exports increased marginally to over 2.94 lakh tonne in the first 11 months this year as exporters sold more stock last month fearing further fall in global prices, the Coffee Board said.
The country had exported 2.91 lakh tonne coffee bean in the January-November period of last year, it said.
“There is a small increase in export volumes as of now.
One of the reasons was that exporters offloaded slightly more stock in the global market in anticipation of further fall in global prices,” a senior Coffee Board official told PTI.
Total exports in terms of value also increased marginally to Rs 4,421.25 crore in the January-November period of this year from Rs 4,406.98 in the year-ago period, the Board said.
However, the export value realisation remained lower at Rs 1.50 lakh per tonne against Rs 1.51 lakh per tonne in the review period, it added.
Of the total exports, Board said the shipment of robusta variety of coffee bean increased by 3 per cent to 1,56,925 tonne in the first eleven months of 2013 compared with 1,52,480 tonne in the same period last year.
However, the shipment of arabica coffee fell by 6.4 per cent to 52,003 tonnes from 55,570 tonnes, while the export of instant coffee declined sharply by 48 per cent to 21,138 tonnes from 41,090 tonnes in the review period.
Maximum exports were to Italy at 73,209 tonne, Germany at 29,089 tonne, Russia at 19,274 tonne and Belgium at 16,680 tonne in the said period.
According to analysts, coffee prices have plummeted in the world markets due to forecasts of record output in several coffee-producing countries such as Brazil, Colombia and Vietnam.
Prices of both robusta and arabica coffee have slipped below USD 100 cents per pound level in the overseas market.
India’s coffee production is estimated higher at 3.47 lakh tonne for this year. Harvesting of the crop has begun in some states.