The increase to $135 of the international price of the quintal is promising for the coffee sector, since in recent years producers have gone through severe crises because of the fall in the price of the grain.
According to figures from Bloomberg Markets, between mid-November and the first week of December the price of a quintal of coffee at the international level registered an important upturn, going from $100 to $135.
Natural or legal persons who wish to register as exporters with the Honduran Coffee Institute will no longer have to comply with the requirement to prove a minimum share capital of $1 million.
Directors of the Honduran Coffee Institute (Ihcafe) reported that the market commission had been managing the proposal since 2018, which was already approved by the National Coffee Council (Conacafé).
Because of a drop in the price of the grain, during the first eight months of the 2018-2019 harvest Honduran coffee sales abroad totaled $673 million, 14% less than what was reported in the same period of the 2017-2018 cycle.
According to figures from the Honduran Coffee Institute (Ihcafe) between the first eight months of the 2017-2018 harvest, which runs from October 2017 to May 2018, and the same period of the 2018-2019 season, sales and exported volume decreased from $786 million to $673 million, and from 6.4 million to 6.3 million, respectively.
The sector union foresees that for the 2017-2018 harvest foreign currency generated from sales abroad will fall by 14% with respect to the previous season.
Explained by a drop in the average price per hundredweight of exports, which fell from $145 in the 2016-2017 season to $123 so far in the current harvest, the Honduran Coffee Institute (Ihcafé) envisages a 14% decrease in income from sales abroad.
The Honduran Coffee Growers Association has stated that exports of the special grain will continue to increase, and in the present harvest they plan to export three million bags of differentiated coffee.
Representatives from the Honduran Coffee Institute (Ihcafé) announced that so far this season, they have sold more than one million bags of speciality coffee, equivalent to $1.144 million, and the main destination markets are the United States and Europe.
The coffee sector plans to close the current cycle with 12 million hundredweight of grain, which would represent an increase of 2.7 million hundredweight compared to the previous harvest.
The president of the Honduran Coffee Institute, Asterio Reyes, told Elheraldo.hn that "... If today we had an increase of 2.7 million hundredweight over the previous one and the idea is to surpass it, then what we could achieve minimally is 12 million."
Exporters warn that the proposal to retain $5 for every three or four pounds of exportable quintal will reduce competitiveness and encourage smuggling.
The bill introduced in Congress days ago cites the retention of $5 for every three or four pounds of exportable quintal in order to constitute a fund to support coffee growers affected by rust. Exporters believe that this measure will only encourage more smuggling and reduce the product's competitiveness internationally.
During the first ten months of the 2012-13 crop, coffee sales fell by 41.4% in currencies and 15.6% in volume.
According to the manager of the Honduran Coffee Institute (Ihcafé), Victor Hugo Molina, coffee exports between October 2012 and July 2013 were $763.8 million, whereas last season revenues were reported of $1,034 million.
In terms of the volume exported during the period, 5.4 million quintals of grain were sold, a decrease of 15.5% compared to the previous cycle, when the amount was 6.4 million.
During the first half of the 2012-13 cycle, Honduran coffee exports generated $420 million in foreign exchange.
According to Victor Hugo Molina, manager of the Honduran Coffee Institute (Ihcafé), the volume of exports achieved was 2.9 million quintals, which represents 50% of what it expects to sell during 2013.
"The foreign exchange earned makes the coffee the country's main export," said Molina.
To date exports have totaled 6.6 million bags (weighing 46 kilos), 35% more than in the same period of the previous harvest when exports amounted to 4.9 million bags.
The figures are even more encouraging considering that the total exports so far have exceeded the goal for this year of 5.4 million bags, according to information as at August 7, 2012, from the Honduran Coffee Institute (Ihcafe) .
In the first nine months of the current coffee harvest, the country has exported 5.8 million quintals, up 23.4% when compared to the same period in last harvest.
In value terms the increase was 6.37%, or $1,218 million compared to the $1,145 from the last harvest.
The manager of the Honduran Coffee Institute (IHCAFE), Victor Hugo Molina, said the increase is due to "better farm management practices and better land cultivation".
Coffee growers are counting on the production of more than 100 million quintals of top quality grain this harvest.
"Specialty coffee harvests are getting bigger and bigger. In this period we will have a good number of bags to serve such markets. We believe that exports will rise more than 100 million quintals", said Asterio Reyes, president of Ihcafé (the Honduran Coffee Institute) to Laprensa.hn.
Representatives of BP Commerce will arrive in the country on Jan. 31st to explore the possibility of doing business with domestic producers.
Victor Hugo Molina, manager of the Honduran Coffee Institute said that the businessmen will remain in the country until February 3rd , during which time they will tour various coffee cooperatives.
"Currently, Korea buys 237,000 quintals of coffee a year from Honduras, and ‘with this visit we believe that exports could increase, depending on the agreements reached with the producers’, said Molina.
The 2011-2012 coffee crop in Honduras could double last seasons, but runs the risk of being spoiled before it can be collected in its entirety due to lack of workers.
With crops already ripened, 200,000 workers are needed to join the 800,000 who already are working, in order to collect the whole crop.
Coffee production has improved as a result of better technical management, and the current crop may well set a record, but if more collectors are not found, the crop runs the risk of going over its optimum ripeness, and being ruined.