Global consumption of coffee is likely to climb 1 to 2 percent a year through the end of the decade, International Coffee Organization executive director Vanusia Nogueira said, estimating that about 25 million more 60kg bags would be needed over the next eight years.
“We are more conservative now for a short-term projection,” Nogueira said at a conference in Hanoi held by the Vietnam Coffee-Cocoa Association, referring to all the events the world is facing, including high inflation in Europe and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The organization’s earlier forecasts for consumption growth averaging 3.3 percent a year over the long term were too “optimistic,” she added.
Photo: Bloomberg
The global market would reach a balance in supply and demand in the next two or three years, from a deficit now, Nogueira said in a Bloomberg interview.
The world needs more of arabica and robusta beans, but increases in robusta production and demand would be higher, she said.
Traditional arabica producers are trying to grow more robusta amid global warming, while roasters are seeking to add cheaper robusta to their blends.
“If you have robusta with higher quality, consumers won’t feel a big difference in the blends,” Nogueira said.
Many markets are looking for fine robusta, she said.
Vietnam is doing its homework on expanding to high-quality robusta production “quite well,” Nogueira said, adding that she was surprised to taste three sets of “very good” cups of coffee during a visit a day earlier with a group of international guests to a coffee shop owned by the nation’s second-largest exporter, Vinh Hiep Co.
The group does not see Vietnam’s global dominance of robusta exports being hurt by Brazil’s increased production of conilon, because the extra output would go to supplying the South American country’s soluble industry, the world’s largest, Nogueira said.
Producing nations need to boost domestic consumption for better prices and benefits to their economies, she said.
Vietnam expects domestic coffee consumption to rise 5 to 10 percent in the coming years, from the current 300,000 tonnes, which includes 170,000 tonnes used for instant coffee production, Do Ha Nam, vice head of the country’s coffee association, said at the conference.
Nam, who is also chairman of the nation’s top shipper Intimex Group, projected that shipments from Vietnam would drop this year and next year because of lower production and insignificant carry-over stocks from the previous season.
This time was supposed to be different. The memorychip sector, famous for its boom-and-bust cycles, had changed its ways. A combination of more disciplined management and new markets for its products — including 5G technology and cloud services — would ensure that companies delivered more predictable earnings. Yet, less than a year after memory companies made such pronouncements, the US$160 billion industry is suffering one of its worst routs ever. There is a glut of the chips sitting in warehouses, customers are cutting orders and product prices have plunged. “The chip industry thought that suppliers were going to have better control,” said
Enimmune Corp (安特羅生技) has obtained marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its EnVAX-A71 vaccine for enterovirus 71 (EV-71), becoming the nation’s first enterovirus vaccine completely made in Taiwan, it said yesterday. After spending 13 years and NT$1.5 billion (US$49.77 million) on the research and development of the vaccine, Enimmune plans to start manufacturing and marketing it by the end of March, the company said in a statement, without disclosing customer order figures. “It is possible that the vaccine would not be included in a national vaccination program initially, and consumers would need to pay for it themselves,” parent
Vaccine skeptics blocking transfusions for life-saving surgeries, Facebook groups inciting violence against doctors and a global search for unvaccinated donors — COVID-19 misinformation has bred a so-called “pure blood” movement. The movement spins anti-vaccine narratives focused on unfounded claims that receiving blood from people inoculated against COVID-19 “contaminates” the body. Some have advocated for blood banks that draw from “pure” unvaccinated people, while medics in North America say they have fielded requests from people demanding transfusions from donors who have not received a vaccine. In closed social media groups, vaccine skeptics — who brand themselves as “pure bloods” — promote violence against doctors
Asteroid mining start-up AstroForge Inc is planning to launch its first two missions to space this year as it seeks to extract and refine metals from deep space. The first launch, scheduled for April, is to test AstroForge’s technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The second, planned for October, would scout for an asteroid near Earth to mine. The missions are part of AstroForge’s goal of refining platinum-group metals from asteroids, with the aim of bringing down the cost of mining these metals. It also hopes to reduce the massive amount of carbon emissions that stem from mining
RSS