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Reuters
Bangalore, Oct 30: India's end-season coffee sales continued to dip at the weekly auctions on Thursday due to poor quality and high prices.
"The sale witnessed poor demand for all grades (of coffee) on offer," the Indian Coffee Traders' Association (ICTA) market report said.
"The quality of plantation coffee on offer was considered way below Fair, Average Quality (FAQ) standards and buyers were reluctant to bid." The report said robust as also faced withdrawals as sellers' prices were considered too high.
The FAQ standards are defined commodity standards and are monitored by the state-run Coffee Board. The standards depend upon parameters such as size of coffee beans and their moisture content, among others.
Only 21.76 per cent of the total 477.66 tonnes of coffee offered at the auction on Thursday was sold, the report said. Last week, 25.18 per cent of 527.16 tonnes of coffee offered was sold.
The low sales percentage was largely due to a steep decline in robusta sales. Of the 116.02 tonnes ofrobust as offered, only 24.52 per cent were bought against 42.54 per cent sales of 178.03 tonnes last week.
Arabica sales improved over last week with 20.88 per cent sold out of the total 361.63 tonnes offered. Last week, 16.33 per cent of 349.13 tonnes of arabicas offered were sold.
The ICTA report said small quantities of arabicas traded at prices of about two to four Rupees lower than last week's prices. It said robusta prices were "barely steady" over last week.
Plantation A grade coffee was sold at an average price of Rs 99.23 per kg, up from Rs 98.07 per kg last week. Plantation PB variety was sold at an average price of Rs 117.30 per kg, down from Rs 120.21 per kg last week.
Robusta cherry AB variety was sold at an average price of Rs 72.30 per kg against Rs 72.24 per kg last week.
Prices of both arabica and robusta uncured coffee continued to be higher than international price levels by Rs 50 to Rs 550 per 50 kg bag, the report said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay)Ltd.
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