Selected Problems of the EEC Market for Central American Coffee

This study focuses on two issues of special relevance to Central American coffee exports to the EEC. The first concerns the West German market, which is the most important market in Europe. Attention will mostly be drawn to the process of concentration in the processing industry and to the distribution of surplus profits of the coffee trade, a result of the very different positions of the competitors in this market. The second issue concerns European tariff preferences and their possible consequences, one of which is the shift of the regional origin of European coffee imports and the other is the disadvantages arising from a higher degree of processing of the commodity.