BRAZIL HAS NO SET COFFEE EXPORT TARGETS - IBC Brazil has no set target for its coffee exports following this week's breakdown of International Coffee Organization talks on export quotas, President of the Brazilian Coffee Institute, IBC, Jorio Dauster said. He told a press conference Brazil now had to reconsider its export plans and that the 15.5 mln bag export figure which it had proposed for itself earlier should no longer be taken as the country's export target to ICO-member countries. The 15.5 mln bag offer had been made on the assumption an agreement would bring stability to world markets, he added. It had been a gesture to ease negotiations, but the lack of an agreement leaves it no longer valid and exports could be above or below 15.5 mln bags, he said. Dauster said he would talk to producers, exporters and market analysts before taking any decision on export policy, but any future policy would be flexible and adjusted to market conditions. "We will not take any short-term decisions which might cause markets to panic," Dauster added. He said it would be a policy which shows Brazil has coffee to sell and that it could do so without an ICO agreement. "Brazil has coffee (to sell) and wants to show that it does not need an ICO agreement as a crutch," Dauster said. Commenting on the breakdown of the talks, Dauster said consumer proposals would have implied a reduction of one to two mln bags in Brazil's export quotas. "It was a proposal which would lead to a substantial loss for Brazil and which would be difficult for the country to recover," he said. The consumer proposal to base quotas on a six-year moving average of exportable production surpluses would lead to overproduction as countries boosted output to win higher quotas, he said. Dauster rejected reports which said Brazil's inflexibility had been the cause for the breakdown of talks, noting that its stance had the backing of 85 pct of producing countries. Close links would continue with these producers, particularly Colombia, Mexico and Francophone African countries, but Dauster said no joint marketing action was envisaged at present. He also said Brazil currently had no plans to return to a system of roaster buying contracts, although "no hypothesis has been abandoned." Dauster said he had not yet decided when registrations for May shipment coffee will be opened. He declined comment on whether the IBC will adopt a policy of opening registrations for up to six months in advance, as some exporters had suggested. He noted export registrations for the first four months of the year totalled around 5.5 mln bags, more than half the 9.9 mln exported in 1986 when drought reduced the crop to between 11.2 mln and 12 mln bags. He said that, although he had heard forecasts of 30 mln bags for the coming crop, the IBC would not make any estimate until late April.