Coffee Production to Rise 15% to Record on Brazil, Licht Says

By Claudia Carpenter

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Global coffee production will rise 15 percent to a record 139 million bags this season on bigger crops from Brazil and Vietnam, the world's largest growers, F.O. Licht said in its first estimate for the harvest that started Oct. 1.

The jump from 121.1 million bags last season will include a Brazil crop of 49.7 million bags and a Vietnam harvest of 20.9 million bags, F.O. Licht analyst Stefan Uhlenbrock said in an interview today from Ratzeburg, Germany. A bag weighs 60 kilograms (132 pounds).

``Large sales and exports from Brazil and all this coffee from Vietnam will reach the market very soon, and that could put further pressure on prices in the short term,'' Uhlenbrock said. Big crops will help rebuild stockpiles because Brazil's harvest next year will be smaller, he said.

Its harvest will be up from 37.3 million bags last season and the most since the record 52.4 million in 2002-03, he said. Vietnam's crop was a record 21.3 million in 2006-07. Crops in India, Indonesia and Peru will also be larger, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Claudia Carpenter in London at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net