Tanzania coffee prices hit high levels
Dar es Salaam Friday
Tanzanian coffee prices hit the highest levels of the season this week with demand for the crop far outstripping supply, traders said on Friday.
State-run Tanzania Coffee Board said 4,579 60-kg bags were offered for
sale, with 4,147 bags sold. At the last auction 3,825 60-kg bags were up for
sale and 3,718 bags sold.
Benchmark grade A sold at $132.00-$260.80 per bag, compared with $126.00-$252.80 per bag at the last auction and fetched an average price of $244.98 per bag, up from $233.33 previously.
"These are the highest prices so far this season because of a severe crop shortage," said Vincent Shirima, managing director of Rombo Millers.
Grade A fetched $129.60-$213.00 per bag, from $126.00-$211.00 per bag
at the previous sale and got an average price of $206.25 compared with
$199.70 at the last auction.
East African coffee is normally packed in 60-kg bags but the prices
are quoted for quantities of 50 kg. Buyers and analysts said coffee
prices would continue to rise at the few remaining auctions of the season.
"We didn't expect prices to be this high because the New York levels
are down. Prices are rising because there is more demand than supply for coffee," Adolph Kumburu, director general of the Tanzania Coffee Board,
told Reuters. The coffee board said Tanzania's crop season was expected
to come to an end in the next few weeks as stocks continue to diminish.
"Most of the buyers have already shifted from Africa to Latin America .... the quality of the crop has started to drop because the season is coming
to an end," said Kumburu.
Tanzania mainly produces arabica coffee, which follows New York,
and grows some robusta coffee, which follows London. TCB forecasts the 2009/10 (June/April) crop will fall to 50,000 tonnes in the continent's fourthlargest coffee grower -- after Ethiopia, Uganda and Ivory Coast -- compared with 68,331 tonnes in the last season.
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