ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia, Africa’s biggest coffee producer, expects a bumper harvest in 2009/10 thanks to good rains after export revenues fell 28 percent in June/July 2008/09 due to drought and the global economic slowdown.

“Preliminary assessment indicated the country would produce much more than the estimated annual production of 330,000 tonnes in 2009/10,” Tarekgne Tisgie, a spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Horn of Africa nation exported 133,992 tonnes of beans worth $376 million in 2008/09, down sharply from 170,888 tonnes that earned $525.2 million the previous season, officials say.

“The volume exported and income generated was markedly less than last year due to the global economic crisis and drought which affected some parts of the country,” Tarekgne said.

Ethiopia’s coffee sector got a major boost last week when Japan said it was willing to resume importing large quantities as long as the authorities in Addis Ababa guaranteed the quality and safety of the beans.

Tokyo stopped buying Ethiopian coffee in 2006/07 after beans were found to contain harmful chemicals. Japan had bought more than 29,000 tonnes worth $84 million during that 2006/07 season.

“The problems that we had with Japan are nearly over,” Tarekgne said, adding the Ethiopian government hoped to export as much as 30,000 tonnes to Japanese buyers in 2009/10.

Ethiopia prides itself as the birthplace of coffee. Some 15 million smallholder farmers grow the beans, mostly in the misty forested highlands of its western and southwestern regions.