"Instead of an increase, we will probably have a drop of 15 to 16 per cent from this (97-98) harvest, which was already down," William Stixrud, president of Anacafe, said at the sidelines of a Central American coffee industry meeting here.

This is a higher production drop than the drop forecast for exports, which Stixrud last month said was expected to fall by some 9 per cent to total 2.9 million 60-kg bags during the 1998/99 crop year, which starts in October.

Anacafe expects to export 3.2 million 60-kg bags from the current 1997/98 crop cycle, a figure which already is down by 24 per cent from the record crop of 1996/97 where Guatemala exported about 4.2 million 60-kg bags of coffee.

Stixrud said in late May that some trees on lower-altitude farms that produce Prime and extra Prime coffee haddespite recent rains not recovered in time to produce beans for the 1998/99 crop.He also said tiny, immature coffee beans that had dried upon trees could not be saved and said at the time that Anacafe was expecting a report based on a thorough evaluation of the drought damage to be ready by the end of June.The lower exports are pegged to damage from a prolonged six-month drought.