Mexico City, Oct. 12 - Mexican coffee exports in the now completed 2006-07 crop cycle ended up 15% at 2,893,351 (60-kilogram) bags, the Agriculture Ministry's coffee department said Friday.
This compares to total exports in the last 2005-06 harvest year of 2,507,694 bags, the ministry said in its final report for the cycle.
Mexican coffee exports in September, the 12th and last month of the 2006-07 cycle (October-September), reached 206,619 bags, up 1.2% on shipments of 204,131 bags in September 2006, the report said.
September coffee exports included 143,748 bags of green coffee, 783 bags of roast and ground coffee, and 62,088 bags in green coffee equivalent of soluble coffee and extracts, the report said.
Coffee production in Mexico's now completed 2006-07 harvest ended flat on output in the 2005-06 crop cycle at about 4.0 million 60-kilogram bags, the country's biggest exporter and buyer said last month.
Eduardo Esteve, director general and chief executive of Agroindustrias Unidas de Mexico, or AMSA, told Dow Jones Newswires that AMSA's initial forecasts for the 2006-07 harvest to rise 12.5% to 4.5 million bags had not materialized.
Despite industry expectations for a crop recovery, many producing regions in Mexico's largest growing state of southern Chiapas that suffered severe damage from Hurricane Stan in 2005 had not recovered, Esteve said.