24 Jan 2006

Green coffee demand up in Papua New Guinea

10:23 am on 24 January 2006

Coffee exporters in Papua New Guina have sold all their green coffee to overseas customers and are looking for more as demand increases for the product.

The Postcourier reports the local price for coffee has also increased markedly as world demand feels the pinch of a fall in supply as a result of a fall in production caused by cyclone damage to coffee estates.

Local coffee prices have nearly doubled overnight from around US$1 a kilogramme to US$1.30 in the past two weeks for parchment coffee.

Local buyers in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province, were buying parchment coffee at US$1.38 a kilogramme last week.

Coffee Industry Corporation chief executive officer Ricky Mittio says the price of coffee would continue to increase in the next week as well as all of February.