April 25, 2008

EU 07-08 soft wheat export picks up

EU licenses to export soft wheat rose 196,000 tonnes for the week ended April 22, EU data showed Thursday (April 24, 2008).

This is down 335,000 tonnes on the previous week and brings the total for 2007-08 to 7.064 million tonnes, 43 weeks into the marketing year.

For the same period of the 2007-08 campaign, the EU was a net soft wheat exporter of 2.781 million tonnes.

This falls short of year-ago levels when EU soft wheat export licenses totaled 7.5 million tonnes for net exports of 4.0 million tonnes.

Traditionally, the EU is a major net exporter of soft wheat, but sales this season got off to a slow start, with import licenses exceeding those to export until early February. Demand has picked up since the start of the year as supplies in other exporting nations run low.

As of 43 weeks into the season, the EU is a net grain importer of 8.0 million tonnes, compared to net exports of 4.7 million the same time last season. The rise is mainly the result of an increase in corn and sorghum imports as a cheap feed alternative to wheat.