COLOMBIA: Coffee Federation says the country can meet exports for 7 to 10 more days unless the truckers' strike is settled

Record ID: 338617

  • Title: COLOMBIA: Coffee Federation says the country can meet exports for 7 to 10 more days unless the truckers' strike is settled
  • Date: 13th August 2008
  • Summary: (BN02) MONSERRATE, HUILA. COLOMBIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF COFFEE-GROWING FARM VARIOUS OF COFFEE PICKER COLLECTING COFFEE COFFEE PICKER CLEANING COFFEE COFFEE PICKER PUTTING COFFEE IN A SACK
  • Embargoed: 28th August 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Colombia
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVA9F08UGY0NMCZ5USVYGDDXQYJU
  • Story Text: As a Colombian truck drivers' strike hits 13 days, the country will only be able to keep its commitment of coffee shipments for another week to 10 days, warned the head of the country's Coffee Federation on Tuesday (August 12).

    "We have approximately 280-thousand bags stored at this time, waiting to be exported. Fortunately we had stock at the port and we also had stock out of Colombia, most of them in Europe, that has allowed us not to break our commitments," said President of the Colombian Coffee Federation Gabriel Silva.
    While shipments of the prized beans have continued from the Caribbean ports of Cartagena and Santa Maria, they have been suspended from the country's main port, Buenaventura, which usually carries 55 percent of the country's coffee exports.

    "We are starting to feel some pressure," said Silva. "If the strike keeps going for another week or ten more days the situation will go from manageable to very complex."
    Truckers are demanding that they be paid more to offset increases in fuel prices and highway tolls.
    Drivers say the government of President Alvaro Uribe has not enforced a deal reached weeks ago aimed at improving freight payment rates and other conditions but Transportation Minister Andres Uriel Gallego has said the drivers' position amounted to coercion.

    "The government knows and they were aware of this situation. That is why, before this strike, we considered what could be coming," said striking truck driver Enrique Virviescas. "We tried to negotiate with the president (Colombian President Álvaro Uribe) and the president, with a very irresponsible act thought he was playing, because the president thinks that he can play with the people because most of the people support him but the people are letting him know that that is not true."
    Colombia, a prime source of Arabic beans, is the world's third biggest coffee exporter after Brazil and Vietnam.
    The Andean country, whose coffee industry is personified by mustached advertising icon Juan Valdez and his mule Conchita, exported 5.8 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in the first half of this year.
    Colombia has 900,000 hectares of coffee fields which support over half a million families or 2.5 million people.
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