Ethiopian exports from Ethiopia in the just ended financial year are 100,000 tones short of the projected exports according to an unofficial source.
The exports are below projection and lower than what the country exported last year although exports did show signs of increasing in the final two months of the concluded fiscal year noted experts.
The demand for coffee was reduced by the international economic meltdown that has affected major export destinations and the bumper harvest acquired by the world’s largest producer of coffee, Brazil.
These factors combined to reduce prices for coffee on the international market to 1.50 US dollars a kilo down from 1.85 US dollars a kilo.Brazil is expected to harvest surplus of six to eight million 60 kilogram bags of coffee estimated to 360 thousand to 480 thousand tons this years said reports.
Ethiopian exporters took advantage of contracts entered in with buyers when prices were higher to buy the coffee at the reduced prices and to export in bulk in the last two months of the year managing to raise exports marginally.
Even so the volume of coffee exported in the budget year is 16,000 tons less than what was exported last year.
Source: The Reporter
