New York, March 28 - World coffee production is set to rise to 141.87 million (60-kg) bags in 2007/08 (Oct/Sept), up from 123.4 million in 2006/07, investment bank Fortis said in a monthly report on Friday.
Arabica production was expected to climb to 90.84 million bags, up from the prior season's 76.01 million bags, while robusta output was forecast to rise to 51.03 million bags from 47.7 million the previous year.
"Since our last Coffee Outlook (December 2007) we have marginally raised our estimate for global coffee production during 2007-2008, largely as a consequence of the greater certainty concerning the upcoming 2008/2009 Brazilian crop, part of which we take into our calculations for 2007/2008," the report said.
Fortis projected top producer Brazil would produce 52 million 60-kg bags, up from its previous estimate of 50 million bags, in its 2008/09 (April/March) crop year.
Vietnam was estimated to have harvested 19.1 million 60-kg bags of robusta coffee and 400,000 bags of arabica during the 2007/08 crop year, unchanged from Fortis' previous projection.