Japanese warehouse coffee stocks totalled 58,473 tonnes at the end of April, down by 13.1 per cent from 67,298 tonnes a year earlier, the Agriculture Ministry said on Monday.

Indonesian coffee trade in shambles

A struggling Indonesian rupiah and wide-spread lootings in coffee plantations wrecked havoc in the country's market last week. Some of the highly traded items including grade-four robusta beans hovered at 16,500/17,000 rupiah/kg in the key growing area of Lampung on Sumatra. There was general willingness to sell coffee in small quantities. Although rupiah recovered late last week, the investors shied away from the market as political situation threatened to destabilise.

There were reports of lootings in plantation areas and coffee trucks being vandalised by robbers. At least 50 tonnes of coffee beans had been looted from various plantations in Sumatra since the start of the harvests. The provinces of South Sumatra, Lampung and Bengkulu accountfor 70 per cent of Indonesia's coffee output. The country's coffee production is expected to reach 330,000 tonnes in 1998, unchanged from last year because of the severe drought.

Japan rubber output down

Japanese rubber output for tyres totalled 93,631 tonnes in April, down 0.7 per cent from the same month last year and down 3.3 per cent from March, the Japan Automobile Tyre Manufacturers' Association said last week. Domestic rubber shipments in April amounted to 45,179 tonnes, down 14.2 per cent from the previous year and down 15.3 per cent from March, the industry body said. Exports of rubber for tyres in April totalled 45,793 tonnes, up 16.6 per cent from the previous year and up 3.1 per cent from March, it said. In the first four months of this year, rubber output for tyres totalled 360,433 tonnes, down 0.9 per cent from the same period a year earlier, it said.

Brazil coffee belt may get rains

The cold front currently present over Brazil's coffee belt will move towards Atlantic. Thiswill enable the country's coffee belt to remain free of the threat of frost at least until the start of next week, according to independent meteorologists Somar. "The cold front will move through the coffee areas during Friday, causing rains (which will be) generally weak and slowing the harvest," Somar said. Although the front would skirt the southern tip of the coffee belt there was no forecast of crop-damaging weather, Somar said in a regular bulletin. "The cold air mass at the rear of this system will move towards the ocean in the south of the coffee areas but not causing a steep decline in temperatures," it said. While cold early mornings could be expected mainly in southern Minas Gerais and higher elevations in Sao Paulo, the Somar bulletin stressed there was no risk yet of temperatures falling to critical levels. Early morning temperatures have been fairly cold this week but no frost has been reported in coffee areas.

Coffee traders welcome listing

Physical coffee bean traders in Japan saidthough they welcomed the listing of yen-denominated contracts in the country, the world's third-largest coffee consumer, they were sceptical whether liquidity would grow amid the economic slowdown in Asia. The Tokyo Grain Exchange launched coffee futures on Tuesday. However, the move is not likely to immediately attract much interest from investors other than individual speculators, traders said. The economy is so bad everywhere. I wonder how much liquidity Tokyo's coffee futures will attract," said one Singapore-based coffee trader.

"Theoretically it's a good thing in the long term to have a coffee futures trading centre in Asia. But it will take some time for the market to take off," he added. Global market prices of commodities, including coffee, have tumbled over the past year as Asia's economic crisis helped trigger heavy selling backed by fears of a slump in commodity consumption in the region. Following the market plunge, Japan's yen-denominated aluminium futures, the most recently listed commodity,saw daily turnover evaporate to less than 1,000 lots from a peak of 20,000 lots. They were launched in April last year.

Tokyo may attract more roasters

Of Japan's total green coffee imports of 324,489 tonnes last year, arabica coffee, mainly from Latin America, accounted for about 70 per cent. The remaining 30 per cent was robusta coffee, purchased mainly from Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. The Tokyo market might attract domestic roasters, who currently use the New York and London futures markets to hedge their risks, traders said. It may also help foreign coffee bean suppliers gain a foothold in the closed coffee business in the country, they said. "In the long-term, we expect considerable benefits from having coffee futures here as it would relieve us of the risks associated with holding coffee stocks ourselves," said Akira Yamaki at Nestle Japan Ltd, a unit of Swiss food giant Nestle SA. Yamaki said he would watch how TGE's coffee futures prices are formed, and addedthat a volatile market led by speculators might deter the company from using the contracts. Meanwhile, commodity futures brokers said they were looking forward to the listing of coffee futures. Tea offerings get good response A quantity of 1242860.8 kgs of tea were offered on sale in New Delhi last week. The offerings met with a good demand. Though initially at lower rates orthodox brokens and fannings realised prices, which were irregular and often easier market. For CTC tea opened rs four to five lower than the last levels. But prices started hardening. After three four catalogues were sold prices became almost steady. The FP and Pekoe grades were tending dearer. The dusts met with a good general demand. Orthodox dusts were about steady but ctc dusts realised prices which were firm though occasionally tending easier.

Coffee in demand Coffee was in good demand from both exporters and local dealers at the weekly auction in Calcutta last week, market sources said. Washed arabicas dropped by Rs 5 a kg tointernational levels and exporters were quick to cover some quantities, the sources said. Arabica cherry rose marginally by upto Rs 3 on demand from local traders, while washed robustas dropped by Rs 2 a kg and robustas cherries gained similarly. According to the sources, of the 59,7746 kgs of arabica on offer,16,4211 kgs were picked up. As against 62,9400 kgs of robusta available, 32,6691 kgs were sold.STC unveils scheme for rubber The State Trading Corporation (STC) will sell 9,600 tonnes of natural rubber (RSS-Four grade) against valid advance licences under a scheme worked out to dispose of the stock. STC has written to tyre manufacturers that it has enough natural rubber stocks and is inclined to sell the same at rates prevailing in bangkok. The rubber will be priced on the basis of the previous week's average price quoted at Bangkok for the RSS-3 grade. In addition, another six per cent will be levied to meet the freight charges. The price thus arrived at in US dollars will be converted to Indianrupees by applying the prevailing exchange rate, an STC letter to the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) said. However, Rs 500 per tonne will be reduced to cover internal transportation. STC will announce the previous week's average price for the sale on every monday. Meanwhile, STC has fixed a price of 787.47 dollars (minus Rs 500) per tonne for the week starting from monday, June 8 and ending on Friday, June 12. The scheme can be availed by any actual user or organisation holding advance licence for import of natural rubber, it said.

Branded tea prices to go up

Branded tea prices in the country could increase by Rs 12 a kg following the eight per cent excise levy hike on branded package tea in the Union budget, tea packers said. "Imposition of a eight per cent excise duty on branded packaged tea will unleash strong inflationary pressures and prices could go up by Rs 12 per kg," the Tea Packers Association of India (TAIP) president Pavan Khanna said.