January 21, 2004

 

 

UK 2003-04 Total Wheat Exports At 1.33 Million MT To End-November

 

The U.K. exported 267,486 metric tons of wheat in November, so that total cumulative exports from the start of the 2003- 04 marketing year in July now stand at just under 1.33 million tons, U.K. trade data issued by the Home Grown Cereals Authority, or HGCA, showed Tuesday.

 

Of the 244,041 tons of wheat shipped to other E.U. member states in November, Spain was the largest buyer with 80,599 tons, bringing the cumulative total since July to 547,503 tons, making Spain the top buyer of U.K. wheat.

 

The second largest buyer of U.K. wheat during November was Ireland with 34,639 tons, followed by the Netherlands with 34,504 tons and Italy with 28,241 tons.

 

Of the November total, U.K. customs data showed that 23,445 tons had been shipped to non-E.U. countries. Of that tonnage, 22,500 tons had been shipped to South Africa and 945 tons to the Faroe Islands, bringing the total until the end of November to 46,326 tons.

 

Figures for third country exports during November had already been made available on Jan. 14.

 

These figures compare with a total of 1.042 million tons of wheat exported until November during the 2002-03 marketing year.

 

At the end of the 2002-03 campaign total U.K. wheat exports stood at nearly 3.3 million tons, with 2.6 million tons to E.U. destinations and 670,000 tons to third countries, the data showed.

 

The pace of exports during the 2003-04 marketing year has been faster than during the previous campaign, with traders' estimates of the remaining exportable wheat surplus varying between 500,000 tons to 1 million tons until the end of the campaign.

 

For U.K. barley exports, customs data show that 88,108 tons were exported during November, with 5,478 tons of the total accounted by non-E.U. destinations.

 

This brings the total cumulative exported until November to 559,661 tons.

 

Spain was again the largest buyer of U.K. barley with 29,426 tons purchased, bringing Spain's total purchases to 148,612 tons in the marketing year to November.

 

In 2002-03, the U.K. exported a total of over 1.1 million tons of barley.