March 30, 2005

EU soft wheat licenses amount to 128,000 tonnes

The European Union Commission has issued 128,000 tonnes of soft wheat import licenses in the two weeks to March 22, so the total excluding flour since the start of the 2004-05 marketing year on July 1 stands at 3.825 million tonnes, official EU figures show.

For durum wheat, the Commission gave 75,000 tonnes, to total 1.192 million tonnes. For barley, it gave 25,000 tonnes of licenses, for a total of 386,000 tonnes, while it gave 197,000 tonnes of import licenses for corn, bringing the total so far to 1.804 million tonnes. For sorghum the Commission gave 27,000 tonnes, for a total of 209,000 tonnes.

The licenses were all awarded at zero value and are valid for to up to five months.