COLOMBIA BLASTS U.S. FOR COFFEE TALKS FAILURE

  Colombian finance minister Cesar Gaviria
  blamed an inflexible U.S. position for the failure of last
  week's International Coffee Organisation, ICO, talks on export
  quotas.
      "We understand that the U.S. Position was more inflexible
  than the one of Brazil, where current economic and political
  factors make it difficult to adopt certain positions," Gaviria
  told Reuters in an interview.
      The U.S. and Brazil have each laid the blame on the other
  for the breakdown in the negotiations to re-introduce export
  quotas after being extended through the weekend in London.
      Gaviria stressed that Colombia tried to ensure a successful
  outcome of the London talks but he deplored that intransigent
  attitudes, both from producing and consuming nations, made it
  impossible.
      In a conversation later with local journalists, Gaviria
  said the U.S. attitude would have serious economic and
  political consequences, not necessarily for a country like
  Colombia but certainly for other Latin American nations and for
  some African countries.
      He told Reuters that Colombia, because of the relatively
  high level of its coffee stocks, would probably suffer less.
      According to Gaviria, Colombia can hope to earn about 1,500
  mln dlrs this calendar year from coffee exports, which
  traditionally account for 55 pct of the country's total export
  revenue.
      That estimate would represent a drop in revenues of 1,400
  mln dlrs from 1986.
      Colombia, which held stockpiles of 10.5 mln bags at the
  start of the current coffee year, exported a record 11.5 mln
  bags in the 1985/86 coffee year ending last September 30.
  

