IN BRIEF : Stalemate Threatens Coffee Pact

talemate between the world’s leading coffee producers and consumers threatens the survival of an international price support agreement beyond September, International Coffee Organization delegates said today.

At preliminary talks this week in London, delegates to the 74-nation ICO failed to make tangible progress toward an agreement to set export quotas and regulate the coffee market into the 1990s.

No new ideas emerged even though both sides hope to have a new deal ready by the spring, the delegates reported. Talks begin in earnest Feb. 20.

Consumers such as the United States, West Germany and other European countries want a revamped agreement, rejecting the idea of simply extending the present pact beyond September. But producers favor simply modifying the present pact, which has not changed much since beginning in the 1960s. ICO consumers complain that they have to buy coffee at ICO-supported prices while sellers are free to make cheap coffee sales to consumer nations outside the pact -- such as East Bloc and Arab countries.