But they said prices would also need to rise enough to distract coffee farmers away from the annual Tet Lunar New Year holiday, which falls in mid-February.

``Vietnam's market is off now and people are winding down before Tet,'' said one state exporter in the country's top coffee producing province of Daklak.

``At the moment farmers don't need cash and so while prices are low they see no reason to sell.''

Vietnam's robusta benchmark grade 2, five per cent black and broken was quoted at $1,520-1,530 a tonne, FOB Saigon Port, $30 down from last week. London March futures closed $21 lower at $1,705 on Thursday.

The Daklak exporter said farmers in Brazil had been selling a significant quantity of coffee recently, which had pushed market quotations lower.

Brazil could ship around 1.8 million 60-kg bags of green coffee in February, up from the 1.4 million export figure likely for January, the Brazilian Federation of Coffee Exporters said late on Thursday.

One trader in Daklak's capital Buon Me Thuot predicted many trading houses would hold beans and just sell regular quantities during the year.

Traders said harvesting of the 1998/99 coffee crop had finished and one dealer estimated that Daklak, which accounts for 60 per cent of the country's output, had exported up to 40 per cent of its yield.

Coffee output from Vietnam's 1998/99 crop is expected to reach 360,000 tonnes, chairman of the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association Doan Trieu Nhan told Reuters earlier this week.

Vietnam, one of the world's top robusta exporters has targeted to ship abroad 380,000 tonnes of coffee in calendar 1999. It exported 379,000 tonnes last year.