RI, VIETNAM ADVISED TO FORM JOINT ROBUSTA COFFEE COMMITTEE

Jakarta, June 12 (ANTARA) - Indonesia and Vietnam should form a join committee to handle robusta coffee trading as the two countries combined control 60 percent of the world robusta coffee market, a businessman said.

Rahim Kartabrata, secretary of the Indonesian Coffee Exporters Association (AEKI), said here Friday cooperation between the two countries in managing the robusta coffee trade was the only way to change the present situation where the commodity's market price was in reality determined at will by a handful of fund managers at the London commodity exchange.

He said trading in robusta coffee which is considered to be a second-grade type of coffee was often affected by the market price of Arabica coffee the supply of which was mostly controlled by Latin and Central American countries through the New York bourse.
A crisis at the the New York bourse would immediately affect the robusta coffee price at the London bourse.
"If Indonesia and Vietnam can handle the market through joint actions , a positive sentiment will no doubt prevail in the market, and this will boost the robusta coffee price at the farmer's level," Rahim said.

So far, Vietnam is known as the biggest robusta coffee supplier in the world with an annual production of 900,000- 1,000,000 tons.

Indonesia only ranks second in the export of robusta coffee with an average production of 400-450 tons per year.

The main robusta coffee producing regions in Indonesia are Lampung, South Sumatra and Bengkulu. Together the three regions are also called Indonesia's "coffee triangle."
The destination countries of Indonesian robusta coffee are the United States, Japan, European countries, Russia, the Middle East and China.

This year, Indonesia's robusta coffee exports are predicted to decline on account of climatological conditions, namely increased rainfall in Sumatra.