Nicaragua Apr 2007-08 Coffee Exports Up 43% To 174,647 Bags

Nicaraguan coffee exports in April, the seventh month of the new 2007-08 crop cycle, were up 43% to 174,647 (60-kilogram) bags, the official Nicaraguan Export Center, Cetrex, said Friday.

This compares to total Nicaraguan coffee shipments of 121,803 bags in April last year during the 2006-07 harvest year, Cetrex said in a report, a copy of which was obtained by Dow Jones Newswires.

Total Nicaraguan coffee exports from the beginning of the 2007-08 cycle - Oct. 1 through April - meanwhile, were up 35% to 827,142 bags, from shipments of 612,031 bags in the October-April period of the 2006-07 cycle.

Nicaraguan coffee exports in the last 2006-07 cycle ended down 15% on the year at 1,156,577 bags, compared to shipments of 1,362,487 bags in the 2005-06 record harvest year, Cetrex reported at the end of the cycle.

But Nicaraguan exports shipped during the 2006-07 crop cycle included about 200,000 bags of carryover stocks from the record 2005-06 harvest, industry officials said.

Nicaraguan coffee production in the 2006-07 harvest ended down 41% at 932,396 bags, from production of 1,590,490 bags in the 2005-06 cycle, Nicaragua's Ministry of Agriculture said in a 2007 report.

-By Maja Wallengren, Dow Jones Newswires; 5255-5001-5725; mwallengren@hotmail.com

Nicaraguan coffee exports increase

Nicaraguan coffee exports percolate in first two months of harvest

Nicaraguan coffee exports are up 46.6% during the first two months of the 2007-08 harvest in relation to the same period last year, according to the government's Export Processing Center (Cetrex).

Coffee exports from last October and November, the first two months of this year's harvest, totaled $23.4 million, compared to $15.9 million from October and November of the 2006-07 harvest, Cetrex reported.

The increase is being attributed to a rise in international coffee prices as well as greater productivity.

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