IN BRIEF (Page 17)

Coffee output lower

Coffee output in Brazil, the world's biggest producer, will be "far lower" than the 55 million bags estimated by some market analysts for next year, Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes said.

Above-average rainfall will hinder the ripening of coffee beans next year and may hurt production, Stephanes told reporters in Brasilia. The showers in Brazil's main coffee-producing areas led Safras & Mercado to cut an initial estimate of 55 million bags to about 50 million bags for next year, said Gil Carlos Barabach, a coffee analyst at the Porto Alegre, Brazil-based agriculture research company.