SAO PAULO: Brazil's government will auction 693,300 bags of coffee from its stocks this year due to high coffee prices and concerns about supplies, newspaper Valor Economico reported on Thursday.
If necessary, the remaining 679,400 bags could be auctioned in 2017, the paper reported, without naming sources. The government's crop supply agency, Conab, said in an email to Reuters that the federal government is concerned about prices due to crop troubles in some states, like Esp?rito Santo.
"Depending on the market reaction to the first auctions, adjustments in dates and quantities of future auctions may be made," Conab said.
The agency said Monday it would auction 67,000 bags of arabica on Friday.
In recent auctions earlier in 2016 and late 2015, the government failed to register significant sales, because the minimum price for coffee on sale was above spot market prices.
The government's stocks are small compared with the amount of coffee consumed in Brazil, the world's top producer and No. 2 consumer, each year, and the sale of public stocks would likely have a limited impact.
Conab said last week that coffee stocks in private hands were 13.59 million bags on March 31, down 5.4 percent from a year earlier.
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