US may rejoin International Coffee Organisation after decade-long absence

TEGUCIGALPA : The United States may rejoin the UN-sponsored International Coffee Organisation, after withdrawing from the group in protest a decade ago, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said here.

"We are taking another look at participating in the ICO," Powell told reporters after talks with Honduran President Ricardo Maduro whose country is a major coffee producer.

"That's a subject of intense discussions in Washington now," Powell said. "We have a more positive attitude to it now, but we're not quite ready to make an announcement now."

The United States, the world's largest coffee consumer, caused a storm when it withdrew from the ICO in 1993, damaging the group which had then been challenged by the creation among its members of a coffee cartel, the Association of Coffee Producing Countries, to counter falling prices.

The US Congress had long opposed Washington's participation in the ICO, which it accuses of being a cartel in itself by controlling prices and production and demanded radical reform.

More...