Report Highlights:
Ecuador's coffee production will decrease for MY 2004/2005 due to lack of incentives to harvest all available beans and lack of investments in fields. Ecuador exports more coffee products than coffee beans. The coffee industry, in order to comply with their commitments, will import 200,000 60 kgs. bag of coffee beans under a temporary admission regime.
Executive Summary
Coffee production for Marketing Year 2004/2005 (April/March) is expected to decrease to 750 thousand 60 kg bags, down from the already depressed production of 796,000 60 kg. bags produced in the previous MY 2003/2004.The harvest in MY2003/2004 was worse than expected mainly due to the bad weather conditions and also due to the fact that farmers were discouraged from harvesting because of depressed international prices for coffee beans.In order to meet domestic demand of coffee beans for the industry, Ecuador imported under a temporary admission regime 140,000 60 kg bags in 2003 from Vietnam.The upcoming market year is forecasted to import 200,000 60 kg bags from Vietnam, Indonesia or Brazil.These importations are due to the expected depressed production of beans both of Arabica and Robusta varieties.