HANOI:Vietnam exported an estimated 190,000 tonnes, or 3.17 million bags, of coffee in March, up 18.3 percent year on year, well above market expectations, the Agriculture Ministry said on Sunday.

The estimate was lower than 202,000 tonnes shipped in February, the ministry said in a monthly report.

Last MarchVietnam, the world's second-largest coffee producer afterBrazil, exported 160,600 tonnes.

Early this month traders forecastVietnam's coffee exports in March could fall to between 120,000 and 130,000 tonnes, or between 2 million and 2.2 million bags.

The March shipment brought coffee exports in the January-March quarter to 504,000 tonnes, down 11.9 percent from a year ago, the ministry's report said. "The debt crisis in the euro zone could be one of the reasons leading to a decline in coffee consumption," it said.

Falling supplies fromVietnam, the world's largest robusta producer, could lift prices onLondon's robusta futures market, where the May contract rose $25, or 1.25 percent, to finish at $2,033 per tonne on Friday.

Including March loading,Vietnamexported 762,700 tonnes, or 12.7 million 60-kg bags, between October 2011 and March 2012, the first half of the 2011/2012 coffee crop year, down 6 percent from a year ago, according to government data.

Vietnam's coffee crop year runs from October to September.

The accumulated export volume meantVietnamstill holds nearly 8 million bags, based on a median estimate of the country's output at 20.665 million bags in a Reuters poll in January.

Copyright Reuters, 2012