HANOI: Coffee trading in Vietnam remains sluggish and exporters in Indonesia are fighting for beans due to a prolonged robusta coffee shortage in major Asian producers, traders said on Thursday.

Farmers in Vietnam sold beans at 60,300 dong to 61,300 dong ($2.57 to $2.61) per kilogram, higher than 59,200 dong to 61,100 dong offered last week.

“It’s very tepid now. Normally, trading is this slow only from August to September before the new crop,” said a trader based in the coffee belt.

“Output of the 2023/24 crop will be a lot lower than the current, not because of the weather but because of a smaller cultivation area as farmers switched to other fruit trees,” the trader added.

Coffee exports from Vietnam are estimated to have decreased 2.2% in the first five months of 2023 from a year earlier to 882,000 tonnes, or 14.7 million 60-kg (130-pound) bags, official data showed.

While Indonesia said it exported 7,273.8 tonnes of Sumatra robusta coffee bean in April, dropping 46.7% on a yearly basis.