São Paulo – The amount of coffee shipped abroad from Brazil in 2018 was the biggest in two years at 35.2 million bags, as per a report released by the Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé) this Tuesday (15). The amount was up 13.9% from 2017. Foreign exchange revenue hit USD 5.1 billion, down 3% year-on-year.
Five percent of all coffee shipped from Brazil went to Arab countries. Sales to the bloc were up 19% year-on-year to 1.68 million bags in 2018. “The hike in sales to Syria, despite the issues plaguing the country, springs to attention, with sales going up 2% in 2018 from 2017. They are importing more and more coffee from Brazil. Qatar was another highlight, with sales going up 10% this last year,” Cecafé technical director Eduardo Heron said at a press conference in São Paulo.
The leading Arab importer of product from Brazil is Lebanon, at 521,000 60-kg bags of coffee purchased in 2018. That’s 30.86% of total Brazilian coffee imports by Arab countries, and up 23% from 2017. Syria came next at 304,000 bags imported, followed by Jordan (219,000), Tunisia (171,000 bags), Saudi Arabia (133,000 bags) and the UAE (114,000 bags).
Variety-wise, robusta coffee sales from Brazil to Arab countries soared from 8,700 bags in 2017 to over 33,000 in 2018. Foreign exchange revenue from exports to Arab countries hit USD 228.7 million in 2018, down 1.6% year-on-year.
Overall, the average price per shipped bag was USD 144.53, down 14.9% from 2017. It is worth noting that the country saw a record-high coffee crop last year at almost 60 million bags worth of product harvested.
Regarding the new administration in Brazil, inaugurated on January 1st, Cecafé president Nelson Carvalhaes hopes decisions regarding exports will be attuned to the industry. “It is of the utmost importance that this administration be more technically oriented,” Carvalhaes argued. Regarding relations with the Arab League countries, the Council is hoping not to backtrack. “The Arab countries are major partners of ours. I hope this will remain so [in 2019] and that they’ll drink more coffee,” he said.
Specialty coffees
According to Cecafé, export numbers exceeded expectations in a year that marked a rebound of Brazilian coffee worldwide. Specialty coffee exports climbed 21.3% in 2018 from 2017 to 6.2 million bags. These are higher-quality or certified sustainably-farmed coffees.
“Everything leads us to believe results will be even better in 2019, with the chance of even breaking a new record. The structure of Brazil’s coffee production chain is fully able to sustain this performance, since global consumption is going up 2% on average per year and could reach 170 million bags in 2020. Brazilian coffee is the most sustainable coffee in the world, and it should be supplying 40% of the global market in a few years,” Carvalhaes was quoted as saying in a press release.
Robusta coffee exports were up 738.3% in 2018 to 2.5 million bags. Arabica exports were up 7.1% to 29 million bags.
December 2018 saw 3.7 million bags of coffee shipped from Brazil, the biggest amount on record for the month and up 22.5% over December 2017. Revenue came out to USD 509.1 million, with price per bag averaging USD 137.38. In 2018 as a whole, the United States remained the leading buyer of Brazilian coffee at 6.2 million bags (17.6% of exports from Brazil). The bulk of coffee exports from Brazil get shipped from the Port of Santos, which handled 80.8% of exports last year (28.4 million bags).
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
