São Paulo – The Arab countries increased in 9% their purchases of Brazilian coffee from January to November of this year, according to data from the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé). The country shipped 1.36 million 60-kg bags to the Arab market in this period of time against 1.24 million bags in the same period of 2014. Revenues totaled USD 201.1 million, an improvement of 12% over the USD 179.2 million from the first eleven months last year.
In general, Brazilian exports of the product reached 33.5 million bags from January to November, a volume 1% higher than in the same period of last year. Foreign currency revenues generated stood at USD 5.6 billion in the period, a drop of 5.5%. In the presentation of the data by Cecafé, the technical director of the council, Eduardo Heron Santos, said that Brazil is on its way to exceed the 36 million bags exported in 2015. He also highlighted November’s foreign sales.
Last month alone, shipments of the product totaled 3.3 million bags, an improvement of 6.9% over the same month of 2014. Revenue in foreign currency, however, dropped 20.1% in the same comparison to USD 498.3 million, due especially to the drop in the product’s prices. The prices of the commodity declined in 3.3% in November over October, and Cecafé mentioned the decline in China’s exports as one of the reasons.
Despite the fact they are increasing imports of Brazilian coffee, the Arab countries don’t show up individually as largest buyers. Data from January to November shows that the largest importer of Brazilian-produced coffee was the United States, followed by Germany, Italy, Japan and Belgium. Also present in the top 10 ranking are United Kingdom, Turkey, Canada, Russia and Mexico.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani