Thanks to the surging trend in global Robusta prices, India’s coffee exports for the financial year ending March 2024 touched a new high in value terms.

Despite a marginal decline in the volumes, shipments were at a new record. In fact, financial year 2023-24 was the third consecutive year during which Indian coffee shipments registered a new record.

In dollar terms, Indian coffee shipments registered an increase of 12.5 per cent to $1.26 billion over $1.12 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal. Similarly in the rupee terms, exports were up 16 per cent at ₹10,491 crore over  ₹9,033 crore.

In quantity terms, the exports saw a marginal decline of 2.5 per cent at 3.88 lakh tonnes over 3.98 lakh tonnes in 2022-23.

Supply issues

The global robusta prices are at a three-decade high on supply issues in the top producing countries such as Vietnam and Brazil. This has worked to the advantage of the Indian coffee sector, where robusta is the most widely-produced variety. As a result of high robusta prices, the per unit realisation for Indian exporters went up by about a fifth to ₹2.7 lakh per tonne during 2023-24 compared with ₹2.26 lakh in the previous financial year.

“A combination of factors such as the good market prices for Indian coffee, supply side disruptions in Brazil and Vietnam have helped push up the exports” said K G Jagadeesha, Secretary and CEO, Coffee Board. “Our export quantity in the last three years has increased principally from instant coffee,” he said.

India exports over about two-thirds of the around 3.5 lakh tonnes of coffee produced in the country. It also imports cheaper robusta coffee to re-export them after value addition.

Ramesh Rajah, President, Coffee Exporters Association, said, most of the increase in export value during financial year 2023-24 has come from the robustas. The demand is good and the shipments during the last two quarters of the financial year have been better than the earlier quarters.

Farmgate prices

Farmgate prices of robustas in India have overtaken the arabicas in the recent weeks, tracking the global uptrend. Robusta parchment prices are ruling at  ₹14,000-14,500 per 50 kg bag, while the robusta cherry, the widely-produced coffee variety in the country, is ruling at ₹8,500-8,950. Arabica cherry coffee is hovering around  ₹8,000-8,300 per bag, while Arabica parchment is ruling at around  ₹13,900-14,300.

In fact, Indian robusta parchment AB is commanding a premium of $700-750 a tonne over the London terminal prices, while the premiums for robusta cherry is hovering around $350-400 per tonne.

Italy, Germany, Russia and UAE are among the major destinations for the Indian coffees. For the crop year 2023-24 starting October, the Coffee Board, in its post-blossom estimates, has projected a crop size of 3.74 lakh tonnes over the previous year’s final estimates of 3.52 lakh tonnes.

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