India's coffee exports dip by 7% during Oct-Mar

India's coffee exports dipped by over 7 per cent to 10.93 lakh bags during October-March period in 2008-09 coffee year, compared with 11.78 lakh bags in the same period last year, a global coffee body has said. 

India, one of the key coffee exporting countries, shipped total 10,93,463 bags of coffee, down by 7 per cent over the year-ago period, the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) said on its website.The coffee year runs from October to September. One bag contains 60 kg of coffee.

India sold 3.14 lakh bags of milds and 7.79 lakh bags of robustas in the global market in the first six months of the 2008-09 coffee year, against four lakh bags of milds and 7.74 lakh bags of robustas in the same period last year, it said. However, the global coffee exports showed an improvement despite the global economic recession.     

"So far, world demand remains steady despite the ongoing world economic crisis, while tight supplies of Colombian and to a lesser extent, Central American origins, could make the supply-demand balance even more fragile. This is particularly worrying since stocks are at their lowest recorded levels in many exporting countries," the ICO said.    

The world coffee exports increased marginally by 4.9 per cent to 48.9 million bags from 46.6 million bags during the review period, according to the ICO data.