HANOI, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Vietnamese robusta bean prices rose to a new 25-month high on Thursday, tracking London futures that hit a two-year top, traders said.
   Robusta prices rose to between 33.0-33.3 million dong ($1,692-$1,708) a tonne in Vietnam's top growing province of Daklak, highest since prices reached 34 million dong per tonne on Sept. 16, 2008. Prices were at 32.1 million dong on Wednesday. 
  

    Prices in Vietnam, the world's second-largest producer after Brazil, previously rose to their highest level in 25 months on Friday, reaching 32.7 million dong a tonne. [ID:nHAN93356]
   Robusta prices in Vietnam closely track movements on the London market, where January contract <LRCc2> ended $56 higher at $1,935 per tonne on Wednesday after prices hit a two-year high of $1,944 earlier in the session on technical buying. [SOF/L]
   Higher prices could stimulate farmers in the Central Highlands coffee belt to quicken their early harvesting, even though traders said the pace of cherries ripening has been slow due to scattered showers at the end of the wet season.
   The main harvesting time will start in a week or two and peak from late November.
   While Vietnamese exporters have started slowly selling fresh beans for shipment from December, coffee shipment of around 70,000 tonnes this month from Vietnam contained only beans from the previous 2009/2010 crop. ($1=19,495 dong) (Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Himani Sarkar) 
   
Thursday, 28 October 2010 10:26:50RTRS