May 21, 2008

 

Shipments from grain companies to drop sharply as Argentina implements new rules
 

 

Argentina has limited the amount of wheat and corn companies can export per year to just over 500,000 tonnes, according to a resolution published by the agricultural trade office, ONCCA.

 

The resolution, issued Monday, outlines new regulations governing the cereal export registries and limits each company to declaring 2,000 tonnes of corn or wheat exports per day.

 

Since a year has about 260 work days, each company would be limited to exporting 520,000 tonnes of each cereal per year.

 

The new rule meant leading exporters such would have to severely limit shipments.

 

Cargill, the largest exporter, shipped 3.6 million tonnes of corn and 1.5 million tonnes of wheat last year, according to the Agriculture Secretariat.

 

Bunge Ltd. (BG) and Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) each shipped over 2 million tonnes of corn and over a million tonnes of wheat.

 

Grain exports from the Louis Dreyfus Group, Nidera and Toepfer International G.m.b.H would also be cut sharply.

 

However, local farm paper InfoCampo pointed out that the resolution has not been published in the government's official bulletin, which is necessary for the regulations to come into force.

 

Last week, the government transferred control of approving export declarations from the Agriculture Secretariat to ONCCA. No new export declarations would be accepted for 15 days while the new agency develops the new regulations covering grain exports.

 

New wheat exports have been blocked since November, although 100,000 tonnes of wheat was cleared for shipment to Brazil this week after Brazil complained of soaring prices.

 

Beef exports have been virtually shut down since April due to extensive red tape.

 

Corn and soy shipments have been held up by farmers blocking roads in protest of higher export taxes.