HANOI: Trading in Vietnamese coffee was muted on uncertainty over output due to bad weather and an expected delay in harvest, although domestic prices touched close to a key level considered optimal for sale by farmers, traders said on Tuesday.

Recent low rainfall could mean harvest of the next crop would come in later than usual, said Le Tien Hung, general director of Simexco, a leading exporter in Daklak, the country’s largest growing province.

Output could drop between 10 percent and 15 percent due to adverse weather, he said.

“The peak harvest time in Daklak could be in December, or about two weeks later than usual,” a trader in Ho Chi Minh City, who was conducting a crop survey in the Central Highlands coffee belt, said.

Signs of a smaller 2016/2017 output and the uncertainty of fresh bean availability have prompted exporters to be cautious in offering new crop beans, traders said. Last month dealers in Vietnam, the world’s top robusta producer, had expected sales to pick up after the summer holidays and on prices rising to around 40,000 dong ($1.79) per kg, at which farmers were expected to unload more stocks.

“I’ve contacted several firms to ask for new-crop beans but they have yet to make any offers,” another trader at a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City said. The ICE November robusta contract ended $12 higher, or up 0.6 percent, at $1,877 per tonne on Monday after peaking earlier at $1,881, the highest since March 2015.

In Vietnam, robusta bean prices rose to 39,300-39,800 dong ($1.76-$1.78) per kg on Tuesday in Daklak, from 38,400-38,800 last week.—Reuters