Coffee growers end talks, optimistic of RI commitment

Coffee growers end talks, optimistic of RI commitment

LONDON (Reuter): Coffee growing nations have wrapped up supply talks on an upbeat note and said they hoped Indonesia will participate in any future export control program.

"The meeting went very well...Indonesia was present and the atmosphere was very positive," Rubens Barbosa, president of the Association of Coffee Producing Countries (ACPC), said after the two-day meeting here Tuesday.

The ACPC's technical group, made up of representatives from Brazil, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Salvador and Uganda, met on Monday and Tuesday to debate how to control world supply.

The group's current plan to curb exports to 60.4 million bags for a 12 month period expires in June 1996.

Indonesia, the world's third largest producer and Asia's sole ACPC member, has been wary of pledging support for a new export plan after June 1996, because of objections from its exporters and farmers.

But the major producer's mere presence at the two-day ACPC meeting gave ACPC officials sufficient reason to applaud, after it failed to show at the last technical meeting.

When asked if Indonesia would be part of the ACPC's future agreement, Barbosa said: "I hope so." He also said Indonesia will be present at the technical group's next meeting on May 16.

ACPC delegates, however, said Indonesia will only be part of a future supply program if it was not a hefty financial burden for exporters.

It is the ACPC council, which meets on May 17, that will give the new program, to be implemented after June, the go-ahead. The Council is the ACPC's decision-making body.

Delegates said the proposals agreed by the technical group on Tuesday were top secret.

"We will release no details," said Barbosa.

The ACPC, representing some 75 percent of world coffee output, has already agreed in principle to continue regulating supply past June 1996.

Flexible

The ACPC technical group has based its analysis for the new program of action on forecasts for 1996/97 coffee production, domestic consumption, estimated carry-over stocks in June 1996 and seasonal shipment patterns.

ACPC sources said the most likely program after June is a "flexible" export plan and said the group's two-pronged program of retention and export quotas is redundant.

But ACPC sources said a 12-month export quota plan was unlikely and said a six-month or first-quarter export target for the period after June 1996 was more likely.

Rising output in the 1996/97 period means producers will have to set higher quotas or supply restrictions in the 96/97 period.

"We aim to fix an additional quantity of coffee to supply the market with...we will then see how to divide it," said one producer delegate.

ACPC Secretary General Roberio Oliviera Silva said he was confident that supply controls agreed by growers will endure despite rising output in the 1996/97 period.

"Our statistics show the need to keep discipline among the producers," he said.