Rising coffee consumption worldwide has kept coffee prices at a higher level in recent months, trade sources said.
“World consumption continues to be an important factor in maintaining the current firmness of prices. Although consumption has stagnated in some traditional consuming countries, it is steadily increasing in other countries, particularly in new European Union member countries and exporting countries,” said Nestor
Osorio, executive director of International Coffee Organisation in his latest statement.
Higher consumption has increased the retail coffee prices in all most all coffee importing countries.
The retail price of coffee surged to 454.99 cent per lb in 2007 in Australia from 414.70 cent per lb in 2006, while in Belgium the prices climbed to 523.76 cent from 460.24 and Cyprus reported a jump to 609.16 cent from 559.86 cent.
In the same period, the coffee prices in Denmark increased to 512.24 cent from 463.80 and in Finland the prices climbed to 345.21 from 306.83. The highest increase was witnessed in Poland, where the coffee prices surged by 38% to 419.00 from 304.20 cent followed by
Slovakia, where the prices jumped by 24.86% and an increase of 20.29% recorded in Latvia.
As a result of firm prices of coffee on the world market on the one hand and the inflation caused by rising energy prices on the other, Osorio said the retail prices have increased substantially in many importing countries.
Coffee consumption worldwide in the calendar year 2007 was estimated at around 122.7 million bags, up from 121.08 million bags in 2006 and 118.1 million bags in 2005
