Ethiopia shippers are increasingly frustrated by the minimum price policy and export sales and registrations have reduced sharply as the levels are unaffordable for most buyers; one exporter has been left reeling when not allowed to register a sale at 3.45 c/lb because the Minimum Registration Price was 3.60! No one seems to fully understand how the Minimum prices are set and inconsistency between these prices continues, Natural Limu 4 price is higher than Natural Limu 2, for example. These glaring inconsistencies reflect badly on the Coffee & Tea Authority, which increasingly being labelled incompetent. On the plus side, no Coronavirus cases have been detected in Ethiopia!
At ECX volumes of Naturals have increased and now look much better than only 3 weeks ago and more or less where we would expect them to be; However Southern Region coffees are still scarce and in much lower quantities than in the last 2 years:
We know that in the South the crop was delayed and is smaller this year, however there must be other reasons behind the low volumes coming to ECX and we believe that these lie in Vertical Integration; coffee must be by-passing the ECX altogether and coming to Exporters warehouses directly from the growing areas.
Forex is currently 32.44 Birr to the USD
by Charles Seara Cardoso
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