Coffee Price to Rally on Demand, Brazil's Cecafe Says

By Aya Takada

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Coffee prices will probably rebound to $1.40 a pound within the next six months if the global credit crisis subsides, as world consumption keeps growing led by demand from emerging markets, Brazil's exporter group said.

``In Eastern Europe demand is very good,'' Guilherme Braga, general director at Brazil's Coffee Exporters Council, known as Cecafe, said in Tokyo. ``In Brazil in 2008 the growth of consumption is about 4 percent, which is very significant. It will keep growing. We are very optimistic about it.''

Coffee futures in New York have plunged 34 percent from a 10-year high of $1.7190 a pound Feb. 29. They reached a 15-month low of $1.0935 on Oct. 8 on concern the credit freeze will slow the world economy, cutting commodity demand. Inventories in warehouses monitored by ICE Futures U.S. were climbing and exports from Brazil, the biggest producer, increasing.

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