Colombia’s National Federation of Coffee Growers will team up with Proexport, the government’s export agency, to target new gourmet coffee markets, reported Colombia’s Chronicle of Quindio on Friday.
“There are new markets that Colombia doesn’t export to and where there is a demand including India, UAE, Taiwan, Turkey, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Iceland, Uruguay and the northern triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras),” Proexport President Maria Claudia Lacoutre said.
The partnership will allow entrepreneurs to find and exploit business opportunities in over 50 under-served markets around the world, the two bodies said in an agreement signed on Thursday.
Colombia’s coffee exports accounted for $1.9 billion in 2012 or 0.5% of Colombia’s $336.3 billion GDP.
The agreement comes the same week as Colombia’s coffee growers federation called for more government assistance, as a perfect storm of high production and low global prices continue to hurt the industry in spite of subsidies granted earlier this year.
MORE: Coffee price lowest since 2005, industry needs help: Colombia Coffee Growers
Federation President Luis Muñoz reported that the 2013 harvest looks set to be a bumper crop, with a 41% increase over 2012, to 11 million sacks. This means the domestic price is now less than $200 per unit, similar to what it was in 2005, reported the Colombian newspaper El Colombiano on Monday.
In recent years, after protests and negotiations, Colombia’s coffee industry is currently receiving $443 million in government aid to help them cope with the fall-out from a plant disease that ravaged Colombia’s high-quality arabica crops.
MORE: Colombia coffee fund falls under accusations of fraud
Sources
- Promoverán exportaciones de asociaciones cafeteras (La Cronica de Quindio)
- Proexport y Fedecafé acuerdan exportar cafés especiales (El Spectador)
- Precio interno del café ha caído 40%, advierte gremio (El Espectador)
- Cafeteros llegan a su Congreso con precio por carga de 2005 (El Colombiano)