Vietnam shipped 635,000 tonnes of coffee in the same period of the 2002/2003-crop year, which runs, between October and September, with a four-month harvest ending in January.
The government's General Statistics Office revised up the coffee exports in July to 88,000 tonnes, from 70,000 tonnes previously estimated.
It put shipment this month at 45,000 tonnes, bringing Vietnam's coffee export in the January-August period to 693,000 tonnes, a rise of 52.4 percent year on year. The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association estimated the 2003/2004-crop output at 11.7 million bags, or 702,000 tonnes, a figure many traders regarded as an underestimate.
In July a Reuters survey of traders at five foreign companies showed the 2003/2004 crop produced an average 827,500 tonnes, based on estimates ranging between 720,000 tonnes and 900,000 tonnes.
They put the stock carried over from the previous crop at more than 100,000 tonnes. Local consumption has been stable in recent years at 40,000 tonnes to 50,000 tonnes. Going by these statistics, Vietnam would have run out of beans for exports by the end of August.