Capital Markets

Coffee records highest price this year at Nairobi auction

coffee

A farmer picks ripe coffee berries from his farm. PHOTO | FILE

Coffee prices at the Nairobi auction have rebounded this week by nearly five per cent to hit the highest price recorded this year after declining last week.

The market report from Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) indicates that the price of the commodity jumped 4.4 per cent to trade at Sh31,518 in Tuesday’s auction from Sh29,355 last week for a 50-kilogramme bag. Last week, the price had fallen by 5.3 per cent.

The NCE attributes good performance to the good crop that they continue to receive from growers, mainly coming in from central Kenya.

QUALITY BEANS

Volumes offered for sale increased to 27,000 bags from 26,000 bags last week.

NCE chief executive Daniel Mbithi said the performance have been helped by these quality beans and good international prices.

“We are back to the sterling performance that we have been registering since the beginning of the year. High volumes of good quality beans from farmers played a key role in pushing up the price this week,” said Mr Mbithi.

According to the Coffee Directorate, the value of Kenyan coffee rose 69 per cent in three months to December due to a price increase of nearly one third.

The commodity earned the country Sh2.6 billion between October and December compared with Sh1.5 billion realised in the corresponding period in 2015.