DJ El Salvador 04-05 Coffee Crop Seen Up 4.4% To 1.321M Bags.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 01, 2004 (ODJ via COMTEX)

(Dow Jones)--El Salvador's coming 2004-05 coffee harvest (October-September) is expected to yield 1.321 million 60-kilogram bags in total production, a top industry official of the official Salvadoran Coffee Council said Friday.

This is up 4.4% on the now-completed 2003-04 harvest which ended at 1,265,767 bags, Ricardo Espitia, executive director of the council, told Dow Jones Newswires, releasing first official forecasts for the new crop cycle.

The 2003-04 crop, meanwhile, ended down 5.3% from production in the 2002- 03 crop cycle of 1.336 million bags, Espitia said.

Physical harvesting of El …