SOFTS-ICE cocoa nears 30-year high on dollar, Cadbury

* Cadbury beats sales forecasts

* Stronger pounds weighs on London cocoa futures

LONDON/NEW YORK, Oct 21 - ICE cocoa futures rose close to a 30-year high on Wednesday on a weak dollar and better-than-expected results from Cadbury signalling improving demand, while sugar edged up.

Coffee futures inched higher in routine two-way investor dealings, supported by the soft dollar.

In cocoa, the weak dollar and strong results from UK confectioner Cadbury pushed futures up to just below the key $3,385, above which the commodity would breach 30-year highs.

"The Cadbury story is a better than expected result for Q3, signalling improving demand," said Ricardo Santos, head of the agri-commodity brokerage at BNP Paribas Fortis in London.

Cadbury beat sales forecasts and raised targets in a bumper third-quarter trading report, pushing up its shares and pressuring suitor Kraft to come up with a bigger bid to win its takeover battle.

ICE Dec cocoa was up $30 at $3,363 per tonne at 1349 GMT, having earlier touched a session high of $3,366.

If the contract breaks above $3,385 per tonne, the high reached on July 1, 2008, it will be the highest since February 1980, on a monthly continuation chart.

A stronger pound weighed on London cocoa futures, which are denominated in sterling.

Dealers talked of expected increased allocations by the end of October into cocoa by Deutsche Bank's exchange-traded commodity funds.

"They (Deutsche Bank) have finished their rebalancing," said Sterling Smith, an analyst for Country Hedging Inc. in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Smith was citing information from a private analyst's report, which he said was reliable.

"They're done most likely with their liquidation portion. They were being forced to lower their number of positions in certain markets and being required to buy more in some other markets," Smith said.

Cocoa and cotton were the two commodities of most interest, he said.

A farmers' strike in top producer Ivory Coast did not appear to have any market impact as supplies were flowing steadily, traders said.

London (Liffe) March cocoa was down 2 pounds at 2,169 pounds per tonne in low turnover of 2,770 lots.

Sugar futures inched up on light investor buying, supported by the softer dollar, and dealers said a lack of physical demand dragged on the market.

David Sadler, a senior trader with Sucden, saw support in benchmark ICE raw sugar futures around the 23.00/22.50 cents area, with resistance around 24.70/25.00.

ICE March raw sugar futures were up 0.37 cent at 23.96 cents a lb, while Liffe December white sugar was up $7.80 or 1.3 percent at $599.00 per tonne in thin volume of 1,809 lots.

BRAZIL SUGAR WEEK

Dealers' attention remained focused on Brazil sugar conference week, as they tried to gauge the impact of excessive and persistent rainfall on yields in the world's top producer.

Raw sugar futures more than doubled this year, due to India's strong appetite for imported sugar and concerns over the impact of the heavy Brazilian rains on the cane crush.

"The rains in Brazil are still the big focus of the market," said Pierre Sebag of London-based consultancy Sugar K Ltd.

Coffee futures were little changed in light two-way investor dealings, underpinned by the soft dollar, as robusta dealers focused on the arrival of the new crop in top grower Vietnam.

ICE December arabicas were up 0.9 cent at $1.4270 per lb. On Monday December arabica futures closed at the highest level in 15 months, at $1.4425 per lb.