Coffee prices may firm up in global market: ICO director

CHITRA PHADNIS

Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

BANGALORE, OCT 17: One small ray of light emerged at last week’s international coffee science conference in Bangalore. It was International Coffee Organi-sation (ICO) director Nestor Osorio’s opinion that coffee prices could at last see some firming in the global market.

The last spike in global coffee prices was way back in 1994 when the frost in Brazil destroyed the coffee crop in the largest producing company. For the Indian coffee sector, which had just been freed from control, the frost came as a bonanza.

But ever since then, there has been a situation of overproduction and slump in prices. While the industry saw world production increasing and new countries like Vietnam entering the area, consumption figures were actually going down.

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