Alexandre Rocha
São Paulo – Brazilian coffee export revenues in March totalled US$ 172.03 million, 50.3% more than last year. In terms of volumes, export totalled 2,326,819 60-kilogram bags of the product, 15.4% more than in the same month in 2003, according to figures supplied yesterday by the Brazilian Coffee Exporter Council (CeCafé).
The accumulated result for the year shows that export revenues with the commodity have totalled US$ 403.4 million, 7.5% more than in the same period last year. The quantities shipped, however, have dropped 14.3% – to 5,711,701 bags.
According to CeCafé general director Guilherme Braga, the increase in volumes shipped in March is due to a strike by employees of the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) in February. "With the strike, many of the cargos not shipped were transferred to March," he stated.
Arabs
Among the main importers of Brazilian coffee are, in tenth place Syria, which purchased 128,315 bags of the product in the first three months of the year, at US$ 8.96 million. There was an expressive 955.22% increase in the volume shipped to the Arab country.
In total, the Arab countries purchased 250,752 bags of Brazilian green coffee in the first quarter, generating revenues of US$ 17.3 million, more than half the value generated in the whole of last year with coffee sales to the region.
Lebanon comes in second place among the Arabs, with 70,823 bags purchased at US$ 4.77 million, followed by Tunisia (US$ 1.3 million), Egypt (US$ 629,000), Jordan (US$ 624,000), the United Arab Emirates (US$ 420,000), Algeria (US$ 351,000), Saudi Arabia (US$ 191,000), Libya (US$ 74,000), and Morocco (US$ 21,000).
In general, the main destinations for Brazilian coffee in the first three months of the year were Germany, the United States, Italy, Japan, France, Slovenia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Spain, and Syria. Of the 2,326,819 bags exported, 2,017,891 were green coffee, and 308,928 were soluble coffee.
Prices
The growth in export revenues, despite the reduction of volumes shipped in the first quarter, shows the price increases on the global market. At the end of last week, Brazilian consultancy company Global Invest, specialized in economy and finance, produced a report showing that 2004 will be a year of price recovery for the commodity.
According to the report, coffee prices started dropping on December 3, 1999, when prices per bag were around US$ 95, and reached the slump of US$ 35 per bag on July 24, 2002. After that date, the price started rising again to around US$ 68 per bag on October 15, 2002 (prices calculated on the exchange rate of Wednesday, April 7). Last year, however, there was a huge coffee harvest in Brazil, and as the country is the largest world producer, this made prices drop again.
Nowadays, however, the price is between US$ 73 and US$ 75 per bag, according to Braga. Production cost in Brazil, according to him, varies from US$ 40 to US$ 70 per bag, depending on the type of coffee.
This price increase was due to a reduction in production, together with a drop in consumer country stocks. According to Braga, the 2003/2004 Brazilian harvest totalled 28 million bags of coffee, against the 50 million of the previous harvest.
The Global Invest study shows there will be a shortage of the commodity on the foreign market this year, and for this reason "it is possible that prices will rise."
In fact, Braga stated that the yearly product demand is 112 million bags of coffee, and world production is forecasted at 103 million bags, generating a deficit of 9 million bags.
"It is expected that coffee exporters will export less coffee in 2004 and that consumer countries will have stocks below normal. Brazilian stocks are currently low, and importer stocks dropped 5% at the end of last year," according to the Global Invest report.
"In coming years there should be a balance between these markets (producers and buyers)," added Braga. He believes in a gradual price improvement, but without "booms," despite the forecasted increase of Brazilian production in the 2004/2005 harvest, to 37 million bags.
