India's specialty coffee exports jumped by 40 per cent in the year to March 2003, showing the results of a recent push to boost quality and marketing, officials said on Wednesday.

Provisional data from the state-run Coffee Board this week put specialty coffee exports in 2002-03 at 6,844 tonnes, sharply up from 4,884 tonnes in 2001-02 and 4,096 tonnes in 2000-01.

Specialty coffees are high-quality varieties that fetch a premium well above the commodity rates, often based on the packaging, marketing and promotion efforts.

The premiums are based on their origins, environment-friendly farming, or fair trade that helps farmers and labourers.

In financial terms, exports of specialty grades fetched Rs 39.16 crore (Rs 391.6 million) in 2002-03, up nearly 43 per cent from Rs 27.43 crore (Rs 274.3 million) in the previous year.

The current export markets are in Western and Northern Europe, particularly Norway, while Italy is an emerging market, and the United States is seen as a strong potential market for the future, industry officials say.

Though specialty grades form a small portion of Indian coffee exports, their potential is deemed significant since the country's overall coffee shipments are stagnating.

Ashok Kuriyan, president of the Specialty Coffee Association of India, told Reuters the Coffee Board data was based on an orthodox definition of specialties, confined to the Monsooned Malabar, Monsooned Robusta, and Robusta Kapi Royale grades.

Kuriyan, who is managing director of Balanoor Plantations and Industries Ltd, said robusta parchment AB varieties, which are not recognised as specialty coffee, had also started fetching premiums and deserved to be classified as specialty grades.

"This board figure is not taking into account specialty branded estate coffees," he said. "If you do that, you would have another 1,000 or 2,000 tonnes (in overall exports)."

Kuriyan said promotional efforts launched last year had begun to yield fruit.

India produces four percent of the world's coffee, and exports about 70-80 per cent of its output, mainly the bulk bean sales of arabicas or the staple robusta.

Output in the current drought-hit crop year to September 2003 is estimated at 275,275 tonnes, down from 300,600 tonnes in the previous year.