São Paulo – The volume of coffee shipped from Brazil to the Arabs in 2009 grew 25%, and revenues from exports increased by 4.7% in comparison with 2008. In the whole of last year, 1.32 million bags of the product were exported, generating revenues of US$ 163.1 million. The data was supplied by the Brazilian Coffee Exporter Council (Cecafé).
Syria accounted for 37.44% of purchases and Lebanon bought 25.56% of the Brazilian coffee shipped to the Arabs.
To Guilherme Braga, the president of the Cecafé, the increase in exports to the Arabs is due to “a process of maturation of trade relations between Brazil and those countries.” According to him, other contributing factors are pricing and the increased number of varieties of coffee that Brazil has been exporting.
For 2010, Braga stated that he expects growth of 7% in volume and of 20% in revenues from exports to the Arabs. He claims that, in 2009, revenues were harmed by the product’s low price, which only recovered towards the end of the year. According to the Cecafé president, the organization expects the price of the bag of coffee to rise by 10% this year.
In total, Brazil exported 30.3 million bags of coffee in 2009, the best result in four years, volume-wise. The US$ 4.27 billion in revenues obtained, however, were 10% lower than the figure for 2008.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
