National Coffee Board of Ethiopia

Abstract

Generally speaking. 1971/72 was a significant year studded with a number o f far-reaching international events. Projected on to the global coffee scene, these produced mixed results. To start with, the world's coffee producers were able to quash their traditional bickerings and stand united in order to protec' their interests. Secondly. unitary actions o f the kind by producers on the one hand and consumers on the other tended to cause a serious strain on the operation o f the International Coffee Agreement. In this light, 1971/72 was a critical year, a period when the process o f renegotiating a new international agreement was superseded by the process o f bargaining real hard to buy time and let the present one run its fu ll course until September 30, 1973. 1971/72 was a year o f the United States dock labour unrest. o f the devaluation o f the world's major currency o f quotation, o f the floating o f the British pound. o f the Brazilian frost and the concomitant drastic fluctuations o f coffee prices. I was also a notable unit o f time which saw the formation o f the Geneva Group and a shift in the position o f the producers from the consenting to the asserting end o f the commodity arrangement. This transformation is particularly interesting and bears a striking contrast with the mainly beseeching attitude o f the developing countries' delegates to the Santiago meeting o f UNCTAD III. The Geneva incident o f April 1972 is. in a sense. an indicator to the firm Third World solidarity, a sine qua non fo r the revolutionary change in the area o f international trade, which the future promises. Ethiopia's belief in this regard was and is evident. Since the coffee trade constitutes the foundation o f her economy, she would, fo r practical purposes, continue to endorse the principle o f international commodity cooperation and the renewal fo r the third five years' term o f the International Coffee Agreement. Her observance o f the Agreement's stipulations as a faithful member clearly testifies to this expressed stand. However, i f the tendencies to disrupt the Agreement, as a consequence o f the adoption o f irreconcilable positions prevail. Ethiopia would, by necessity, have to join other producers and work to safeguard her interests. Needless to say, in 1971/72. the international coffee market was flooded by extraneous forces o f weighty proportions and at every stage o f the meander we were made to sense that we were amidst the deluge. It is a fascinating irony , yet also a bi-product o f the resultant interdependence o f our times that nations are easily affected by or are drawn to a major tide. And those who navigated the ship o f the International Coffee Agreement this year certainly had many anxious moments. In any case, because o f the demand created by fea r o f actual or imagined with-holding o f supplies by producers and the upward adjustment o f quarterly quotas, our coffee exports to quota and non-quota markets have risen by 5.2 and 13.2 per cents respectively. And to cope up with this growth rate, the marketing o f coffee fo r export was conducted at the Makanissa Exchange Center through auctions under the direction o f the National Coffee Board.