DJ El Salvador 07-08 Coffee Crop Seen Ending Up 21% To 1.5M Bags

El Salvadoran coffee production in the now completed 2007-08 harvest is estimated to have reached as much as 1.5 million bags, up 21% from last year's crop, the official Salvadoran Coffee Council said Friday.

This compares to total production of 1,242,276 bags in the 2006-07 harvest cycle (October-September), a council official told Dow Jones Newswires, speaking by telephone from the capital San Salvador.

Releasing the first estimate for the closure of the harvest, for which physical picking ended last month, the latest figure is also higher than the initial forecast for the 07-08 crop to rise 19% to 1,476,046 bags, he said.

Total output in the 2007-08 Salvadoran crop looks set to be the biggest in the tiny Central American country since the 2001-02 cycle, when the effects of historically low coffee prices started impacting production.

Since that time, production has struggled to recover from the 2000-2004 crisis, and the 2006-07 harvest ended with the smallest coffee crop produced in El Salvador in the last 100 years, according to official statistics.

-By Maja Wallengren, Dow Jones Newswires; 5255-5080-3452; maja.wallengren@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-09-08 1755ET