April 11, 2007

Brazilian wheat imports up by 107 percent in March
 

Brazilian wheat imports reached US$144.671 million (107.8 million euro) in March 2007, up 107 percent year-on-year, data from Brazil's Agriculture Ministry showed.

The growth is attributed to both higher imports in volume and increased price. In terms of volume, the country's imports of the product reached a record-high monthly figure of some 771,253 tonnes, up 55.52 percent. Majority of imported wheat came from neighbouring Argentina.

Brazil also imported some 51,223 tonnes of wheat flour in March 2007, with 48,532 tonnes coming from Argentina. Consecutively, Argentina supplied 115 tonnes of premixed wheat of the country's total imports of 158 tonnes.

In the first quarter of 2007, Brazilian wheat imports reached some US$389.4 million (290.3 million euro), up 66 percent year-on-year. The country imported 2.117 million tonnes of wheat, up 23 pct in the same comparison.

Brazil has an annual wheat demand of some 10 million tonnes and is strongly dependant on Argentina to cover it. In 2006, Brazil imported some 6.6 million tonnes of Argentine wheat and that figure is seen to significantly increase in 2007.