Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam exported a record high of nearly 1.8 milliontonnes of coffee during the 2017-2018 crop, 12.7 percent higher than theprevious one, the Vietnam Coffee-Cocoa Association (VICOFA) has said.

During the crop,which runs from October 2017 to September 2018, Vietnam shipped more than 29.9million bags of coffee abroad and earned 3.48 billion USD. As prices of coffeebeans has plunged to the lowest in the last 50 years, with each tonne beingsold at 1,943 USD, 3.43 percent lower than the previous crop, the SoutheastAsian country only experienced a slight increase of 8.43 percent in exportturnover.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, some 1.57million tonnes of coffee were sold abroad for 2.98 billion USD during the January-Octoberperiod, up 21.3 percent in volume and 0.9 percent in value as compared to thesame time last year.

The average coffee price in the ten-month period fell 16.2 percent to 1,901 USDper tonne.

Germany and the US remained the biggest coffee importers of Vietnam, withmarket share of 12.5 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively. Coffee shipments toGermany rose 14.4 in terms of volume, but decreased 6.6 percent in value.Meanwhile, coffee exports to the US declined 3.6 percent in quantity and 20percent in value.

The International Coffee Organisation (ICO) said that coffee production duringthe 2017-2018 crop was estimated to grow 5.7 percent to 164.81 million bags.Brazil was the largest coffee producer in the period, followed by Vietnam andIndonesia.

Coffee supply was 2.58 million bags higher than demand, pulling coffee price downto 111.51 US cents per pound from 132.43 US cents per pound recorded in the2016-2017 crop. Currently, coffee volume remains high in stocks of manyimporters, ICO said.

Since mid-October,Vietnamese coffee bean has been sold at around 35,600-36,700 VND perkilogramme, which goes up slightly but is still lower than average prices of theprevious years.

Vietnam’s coffee scarcity and Indonesia’s export limitation sparked an increasein coffee prices, experts said, but there is no bright prospect for coffeeprices in the 2018-2019 crop due to abundant supply.-VNA