São Paulo – Brazilian coffee exports to the Arab market slid down 5% from January to March of this year over the same period of last year, according to data from the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé). Brazil sold 338,700 60-kg bags for the region in Q1 of this year and 355,300 bags in the same months of 2015.
In revenues, the decline was even sharper at 17%. Coffee exporters generated revenues of USD 44.3 million from January to March of this year with exports to the Arab countries and USD 53.5 million in the same period of last year. The steeper drop in revenues compared to volume means that the coffee was sold for lower prices this year.
Brazil’s general coffee exports also declined in Q1. The country shipped 8.7 million bags, a 2.5% decline over the volume sold from January to March of 2015. Revenues from the sales in the period slid down even further at 25% and stood at USD 1.2 billion. The average price of the coffee bag was USD 191.59 in Q1 of last year and went to USD 147.27 in Q1 2016.
In March alone, coffee exports also declined, with a 4.3% drop in volume and 33.9% drop in revenues, 2.9 million bags and USD 437.4 million, respectively. The comparison is with March 2015. Over February of this year, there was an increase of 2.5% in volume shipped abroad.
In the partial data of the current year/crop, from July of last year until March of this year, it’s possible to notice an increase of 0.6% in shipments, with 27.9 million bags exported. Year-to-year, Brazil exported 36.7 million bags.
Despite the drop in March sales and in Q1 in comparison to the same periods of 2015, Cecafé has a positive analysis of the numbers. “The market was working with the estimation that Brazil would have a decline in exports in this period, which didn’t occur due to the good levels of existing stock. Thus, our performance was better than expected, very close to the 3 million bags”, said Cecafé’s president, Nelson Carvalhaes, on the comparison with February.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
