May 27 - Colombia, the world's No. 3 coffee exporter, will not default on its export commitments despite its shortage of arabicas, but sees some delays in deliveries, its Agriculture Minister said on Wednesday.
"We have no defaults at the moment and we won't have defaults," Andres Fernandez Acosta told Reuters in an interview during a trip to London. "Because of weather conditions there have been delays." He added, "By June everything will be in place and we will have no problems meeting our commitments."
ICE July arabica coffee futures briefly touched an eight-month high of $1.3740 per lb in early trade on Wednesday, and were up 0.50 cent at $1.3695 per lb at 1040 GMT.
Fernandez Acosta forecast that calendar 2009 Colombian coffee output would stand at 11.5 million 60-kg bags, up from 10.5 million in 2008, noting that favourable flowering conditions early this year augured for a pickup of output later in 2009.
"The second half of 2008 was extremely humid and complicated weather that prevented flowering. That's the real reason why we have a shortage of first-half (2009) production," the minister said.
"When there are extremely humid conditions, it means they (flowers) will come out later."
He added, "In January and February (2009) we had very good climatic conditions in the centre and southwest, the main production cluster of the country. We had almost two months of extremely good weather."
Fernandez Acosta forecast that the value of Colombia's 2009 coffee crop would rise some 20 percent to roughly $2.2 billion, as international coffee prices had increased due to tight supplies.