Mexico City, Aug 21 - Mexico will export 2.8 million 60-kg bags of coffee in 2008/09, up 12 percent from the previous harvest, the Amecafe growers group said on Thursday.
Mexico will close this year's 2007/08 coffee cycle with 2.5 million bags of exports, Rodolfo Trampe, the head of Amecafe told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Exports could rise even more in 2008/09 depending on the harvest, said Trampe.
Mexico would grow 4.5 million bags of coffee in the new harvest, up 7 percent from this year's cycle, he said.
Cumulative exports for October through July of this year were 2,164,923 bags, down 11.3 percent from the same period in the previous cycle, Amecafe reported this month.
A cold front at the beginning of the year in Chiapas, Mexico's most important coffee region, hurt the current harvest as well as bad weather in Veracruz, the second largest coffee growing state, said Trampe.
"The initial reports from all the states show a general improvement in next year's harvest," he said. "Two years ago we had a magnificent harvest in Veracruz, which wore out the plants this year," he said.
Coffee plants usually produce less coffee the year after a bumper crop.
Trampe said Mexico consumes about 1.7 million bags of its own coffee. Amecafe has made efforts to boost coffee drinking in the country by promoting locally grown, high-quality beans in national coffee shops.