Workers inspect coffee beans
The Director General of the Inter-African Coffee Organization (IACO), Frederick Kawuama, said Wednesday in Luanda there was a high possibility of coffee revitalization in Angola, as it was one of the largest coffee producers before independence.
Cited by Angolan news agency Angop, Kawuama, who last Friday concluded a three-day visit to Angola, said the country has the experience necessary for recovery of the coffee sector and may be able to return to being a major power in the sector.
This visit is also due to the fact that Angola took on the presidency of the Inter-African Coffee Organisation in November 2014, in the capital of Uganda, Kampala, during the 54th Annual General Meeting of the forum, which brings together coffee producing countries from Africa.
Between the 1990/91 and 2014/15 campaigns Angola’s coffee production ranged from a minimum of 13,000 60-kilogram bags in 2009/2010 and 85,000 in 1998/1999, whilst, according to the latest figures from the International Coffee Organisation, production for 2014/2015 reached 35,000 bags.
Before independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola was a major world producer with 4 million bags or 240 tons of coffee per year, but the civil war between independence and 2002 destroyed almost all the country’s coffee plantations.
The world’s biggest coffee producers in 2014/2015 were Brazil, with 45.3 million bags, Vietnam with 27.5 million and Colombia with 12.5 million bags. MDT/Macauhub
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