Regional Business: Burundi coffee revenues up 9 pc in January

Burundi’s coffee earnings rose 9 percent in January from the previous month, helped by high volumes of sales, the industry regulator said last week.The coffee producer nation earned $2.4 million after selling 663,000 kg, up from $2.2 million earned in December from the sale of 546,161 kg, said regulator ARFIC.“January sales were up as most international buyers were back from season holidays,” ARFIC said in its monthly report.The average price per kg fell to $3.6 in January, from $4.09 in December and the industry board attributed this to some coffee beans of poor quality sold during last month sale.ARFIC predicts revenues in the current 2011/12 season would fall to $52.1 million from $82.8 million in the previous crop due to a weak production.Output is expected to drop to 13,000 tonnes from 24,000 tonnes in the 2010/11 season, due to the crop’s cyclical nature and lower yields from old bushes.The tiny central African country’s goal is to increase annual coffee output to between 40,000 and 50,000 tonnes per season in the next five years by replacing ageing trees with a newer and higher yielding variety.Coffee is Burundi’s top foreign exchange earner and employs some 800,000 farmers in a nation of 8 million people.