Colombia will fulfill its coffee shipment contracts despite scarcities and delays in deliveries and has 600,000 60-kg bags in inventories to cover its exports, the National Federation of Coffee Growers said Friday.
Colombia, the world's No. 3 coffee producer, has seen its exports and output shrink so far this year, hurt by heavy rains, lower fertilizer usage and a program to replace older trees with new, more productive ones.
"The federation has not failed to fulfill any contract and it will not do so. Colombia fulfills its obligations," federation director Gabriel Silva told reporters, adding that there had been some delays in coffee shipments.
The key July arabica coffee futures contract trading on ICE
Colombia, a top producer of high-quality, mild arabicas, reported recently that its output dropped 61 percent in April to 345,000 60-kg bags from a year earlier while exports fell 40 percent to 550,000 bags from the same month a year ago.
Silva said Colombia plans to import 500,000 and 600,000 bags of coffee from Ecuador, Peru and Brazil in 2009 to meet domestic demand. So far this year the Andean country has imported 144,000 bags.
Colombia has imported coffee annually since 2004 for internal consumption.
