Trading activity is slowing down

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Prices offered by shippers have soared in recent weeks and continue to do so. It seems that exporters are happy to slow down their selling activity and focus on milling and shipping. Volumes available internally are down as a consequence of past high activity and the current wet weather which is slowing down the movement of coffee from the growing areas to more urban towns and from there on to Addis. We believe that Export Registrations have surpassed all expectations and now the need to execute has come home, this has slowed the pace of new sales. Tensions between agrabes and shippers have not subsided and exporters continue to have a hard time “forcing” agrabes to fulfil commitments, with many preferring to hand back borrowed cash rather than deliver coffee which they sold elsewhere at higher prices. Logistics continue to heavily hamper export business. Coffee ready for export is taking over a month to get from Addis on to a vessel, due to the lack of containers and space on vessels. Shipping lines are in disarray providing conflicting information on vessel schedules, allocations and where stuffed containers are. We are expecting increased delays in July viz-a-viz June; and June was not great!

The conflict in Tigray is worsening, for more info: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57818673

Birr devaluation vs the greenback seems to be flattening out a tad in the last 2 months, having previously devalued 10% between Jan and May 2021:

Birr 44.04 = USD 1

Have a good weekend!

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Exports explode in June

Once again shipments are up. As the graph below clearly shows, Ethiopian shippers are rushing to get the crop on vessels; No doubt that some urgency is due to the elections held last month, however I feel that the last few weeks NY price action allowed for lots of business to be concluded and even with many logistical constraints coffee has been getting on vessels. We should not understate the significance of achieving nearly 40 K MT shipped in one month, the previous record was 32 K MT (set in May), that is an increase of 8 K MT on the previous record or 25%. We expect that the July figures will be strong, however we are not expecting them higher than the June shipments. Later on in the year the pace will drop drastically, since the 20/21 crop is decent but production will not be able to sustain this pace of shipments.

The wet weather has caused some problems in getting coffee from the growing areas to Addis. Roads have been washed way making them impassable, these instances are usual for this time of the year, during the rainy season.

Twelve month Inflation rate at June 21 was 24.5 % (May 19.5%).

The situation in the North of the country is a mess: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57703538

And the dam issue resurfaces escalating tensions with Egypt: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57734885

Birr 43.89 = USD 1

Have a great weekend.

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