Indonesia's Paian chairs ICO

Indonesia's Paian chairs ICO

LONDON (Reuter): The International Coffee Organization (ICO)
Council has elected as chairman Indonesia's Paian Nainggolan, the
chief of the country's Trade Research and Development Agency.

"The appointment underlines the importance of Indonesia as an
up coming producer," Jan van Weijen, Netherlands' Ministry of
Foreign Affairs official said after a week-long meeting of the
ICO here over the weekend.

Van Weijen was himself elected as vice president of the ICO's
Executive Board.

Philipose Matthai, chairman of the Coffee Board of India, was
elected as vice chairman of the Council while the Britain's Tim
Mordan, from the Trade Policy and Tropical Foods Division of the
Ministry of Agriculture, was elected as president of the
Executive Board.

The meeting also concluded with the organization granting
observer status to an alliance of the world's leading coffee
producers, the Association of Coffee Producing Countries (ACPC).

The move signals a fundamental change in the sometimes
strained producer-consumer relationship and could help both camps
strive towards boosting ailing world coffee consumption and
calming volatile markets, ICO delegates said.

"This shows that we want to cooperate with consuming countries
to promote stability and coffee consumption," said Roberio
Oliveira Silva, secretary general of the ACPC -- who was on
Friday given observer ICO status.