HANOI: Asian coffee markets were tepid as weak London prices discouraged Vietnamese farmers from offloading stocks, while Indonesian traders waited for a mini-harvest to gather pace, traders said on Thursday.
Farmers in Daklak, Vietnam's main coffee-growing province, quoted beans at 36,500 dong-37,000 dong ($1.60-$1.63) per kg, compared with 37,000 dong-37,600 dong a week earlier, in line with a fall in London prices.
The ICE May futures contract fell to as low as $1,742 a tonne on Wednesday, its lowest in a month.
Vietnamese traders quoted the 5 percent black and broken grade 2 robusta at a discount of $70-$100 per tonne to the ICE May futures contract, tightening slightly from a $50-$100 discount a week earlier.
Traders said farmers have been discouraged by low prices in the international market, especially after a big sale before Tet, Vietnam's Lunar New Year celebration and biggest holiday, which lasted from Feb. 14-20 this year.
In January-February, coffee exports from Vietnam, the world's second biggest producer of the commodity, rose an estimated 17.6 percent from a year ago to 336,000 tonnes, government data showed.
In Indonesia, beans exports from the province of Lampung plunged 72 percent in February from a year earlier to 4,042.1 tonnes, marking the sixth straight month of decline in exports from the country's largest coffee producing region.
Indonesia's grade 4 defect 80 robusta stayed flat from last week, trading at a $140 premium to the May contract, said a trader, noting that activities were tepid and only local instant coffee makers were making notable transaction.
Local farmers said some areas in western Lampung have started to produce beans, while coffee traders are still waiting for the mini harvest to come into full swing. Lampung's main harvest season is around June and July.
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