Tegucigalpa, Oct 1 - Coffee exports from Honduras in the 2008/09 harvest season were 3,020,880 60-kg bags, 11 percent less than was exported in the previous harvest, the national coffee institute said on Thursday.
The institute said exports were 3,394,793 bags in the 2007/08 cycle.
Exports in the month of September were down year-on-year by 43.6 percent to 55,778 60-kg bags, the institute said.
Political turmoil is causing uncertainty at the start of Honduras' new coffee harvest as the key export industry worries over curfews, protests blocking highways and border closures. President Manuel Zelaya, ousted in a June coup, snuck back into the country last month.
Almost all of this seasons coffee has already been exported but the crisis in Central America's No. 2 coffee producer could start to affect the industry if turmoil continues to the peak of the next harvest between January and March, the head of the Honduran coffee institute has said.
Coffee exports from Costa Rica also fell this coffee year and in the month of September.
Costa Rica exported 1,318,420 60-kg bags of coffee in the 2008/09 cycle, down 17 percent versus the previous harvest, the country's national coffee institute Icafe said on Thursday.
In September, exports from Costa Rica fell 71.5 percent year-on-year to 14,942 bags.