Luanda - At least 15,000 tonnes of coffee were harvested during the 2009 campaign, thereby overcoming the 5,000 tonnes obtained during the previous season, in a deed that creates new medium-term perspectives for the sector, with view to achieve 50,000 tonnes/year of commercial coffee.

The Coffee and Palm Tree Foment Campaign, part of the National Plan, and the Executive Programme of the Agrarian Sector, which is divided into various components such as the "projects for the rehabilitation of abandoned farms and coffee trade".

According to the director general of the National Coffee Institute (INCA), João Ferreira da Costa Neto, with these programmes the sector doubled its coffee production, in the last two years, from 3,000 to 6,000 tonnes, therefore obtaining 15,000 tonnes during the year 2009.

Still in the year-ended, INCA enabled coffee growers of the country to sell 15,000 tonnes of their product, compared to the 9,000 tonnes sold in 2008, in the light of the Programme of Emergency in Trading Coffee from Peasants Production, established in 2007.

The co-ordinator of the referred programme, João Ferreira Neto, declared that the amount had been stored for year due to the lack of buyers and was purchased in coffee producing areas of the provinces of Uíge, Kwanza Sul, Kwanza Norte and Bengo.