Vietnam's Coffee Exports May Climb 9% on Rising Production

(Bloomberg) -- Coffee shipments from Vietnam, the world’s biggest robusta producer, will surge this year as farmers harvest a bigger crop, according to Industry and Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh.

Exports may total 1.55 million metric tons in 2018, Anh said in a written response to Bloomberg questions. Production is set to increase about 4.5 percent to 1.6 million tons in the 2017-18 season, Anh estimated.

Vietnam’s coffee exports will also be helped by smaller supplies from other countries, according to Anh. The country is the biggest exporter of coffee behind Brazil.

Output in Indonesia, the world’s third-biggest robusta producer, will probably drop to the lowest in 7 years on unfavorable weather, according to the Association of Indonesian Coffee Exporters and Industry. Vietnam’s coffee production may be buoyed by good weather and as farmers benefited from last year’s higher prices, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Increasing exports could further weigh on benchmark robusta futures that have tumbled about 17 percent in London over the past year.

Vietnam’s rice shipments may increase to as much as 6 million tons this year from 5.8 million tons in 2017, according to Anh. The country is the world’s third-largest exporter. Vietnam is trying to boost its economy and expects growth to beat the government’s 6.7 percent target this year to match 2017’s pace of 6.8 percent, according to Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen in Hanoi at uyen1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Phoebe Sedgman at psedgman2@bloomberg.net, John Boudreau at jboudreau3@bloomberg.net, Atul Prakash

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.