Dodoma — JAPAN, Italy and Germany are the leading consumers of Tanzanian coffee, it has been revealed.
Revealing this was the Director General of Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB), Mr Primus Kimaryo when addressing the 13th National Coffee Stakeholders Meeting held at St Gasper Hotel &Conference Centre in Dodoma mid this week.
Revealing who buys the country's coffee abroad, he named Japan which consume a total of 29 per cent of all coffee exports, Italy 13 per cent, Germany 13 per cent, Belgium eight per cent, United States of America five per cent and Morocco five per cent.
South Africa had three per cent, Sweden two per cent, Russia two per cent, Spain two per cent, Israel two per cent, Finland one per cent, Australia one per cent while other countries imported the remaining 12 per cent of the country's coffee.
On the state of local consumption of coffee he named it to be five to seven of the total production, adding that efforts are underway for the same to reach 15 per cent after 10 years.
He said the country has earned 235.636 million US dollars (about 568.8bn/-) after exporting 82,491 tonnes of coffee in 2022/23.
The said earnings were realised after selling a total of 69,805 tonnes of coffee through Direct Coffee Exports and 12,686 tonnes of coffee through local coffee auctions.
Mr Kimaryo said Robusta coffee dominated the Direct Coffee Export market as a total of 41,017 tonnes of Robusta coffee equivalent to 58.76 per cent was exported compared to a total of 28,788 tonnes of Arabica coffee equivalent to 41.24 cent.
As for the local coffee auctions, he said this market was dominated by Arabica coffee - 11,229 tonnes equivalent to 89 cent, while Robusta -1,457 tonnes equivalent to 11 per cent passed through the local coffee auctions.
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The TCB boss said the year 2022/23 production of 82,491 tonnes of coffee was an increase rated at 23.4 per cent, when compared to the same of 66,837 realised in 2021/22.
"This increase in production was attributed by factors which were an increase in the production and distribution to farmers for planting the new varieties of both Arabica and Robusta coffee seedlings which give higher yields per unit area.
"Competitive prices offered in the world market which motivated farmers; stakeholder's efforts to give farmers credits to purchase agricultural inputs and the country and the country's cooperative structure which enables getting the right statistics," he noted.
However, he said the country should not be proud of such production as we still have a long way to go to realise the production of 300,000 tonnes of coffee by 2025/26 as outlined in the 2021/22- 2025/26 Strategic Action Plan.
