Vietnamese coffee growers say they would start harvesting from the third week of October and shorten the process to end in December instead of January to cut back on rising labour cost. Output is expected to increase 19 percent to 21.5 million bags.

   While discounts to London's January contract <LKDF9> have been stable at $160 to $180 a tonne, with delivery from late November or December, transactions involving outright and nearby shipments have slowed following falls in global markets.

   In London , January robustas ended at $1,842 a tonne on Monday, the lowest level since December 2007.

   The fall dragged coffee prices in Vietnam , the world's second-largest producer after Brazil , down to 27,500 dong ($1.66) per kg on Tuesday, the lowest since late December when prices were 27,400-28,000 dong per kg. 

   Last Tuesday, robusta stood at 31,000-32,500 dong per kg.

   "Trade for contracts with shipments from late November has been normal while exporters do not like to sell outright," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said.

   Another trader with a foreign firm said Vietnamese farmers stopped selling as they ran out of stock while exporters did not accept buyers' bids of $180-$185 a tonne.

   "With a very thin carryover stock at present, sales have slowed significantly while almost no fresh beans are available yet," he said.

   Quotations for Vietnamese grade 2, 5-percent black and broken robusta beans fell to $1,660-$1,680 a tonne, free-on-board basis, this week, from $1,870-$1,880 last Tuesday <COFFEE/ASIA1>.

  Farmers have started early harvesting in some areas but the output was not ready and insufficient for shipment, the second trader added. The harvest in the Central Highlands coffee belt usually starts in late October and runs until January. 

   The two traders estimated the upcoming harvest to produce between 1.23 million and 1.28 million tonnes, or 20.5 million to 21.3 million 60-kg bags, from around 1 million tonnes picked in the previous October-to-January period.