July 29, 2010

 

Ukraine will not impose additional grain export controls

 

 

Ukraine's Customs Service has cancelled a previous decision to impose additional controls on Ukrainian grain shipments, said traders on Wednesday (Jul 28).

 

"The decision was cancelled on Tuesday (Jul 27)," said Serhiy Stoyanov, head of Ukrainian traders' and producers' union UAC. The Customs Service gave no explanation for cancelling the measures, while UAC said it had appealed to the government to lift the controls, which were hurting exports.

 

UkrAgroConsult agriculture consultancy and traders said on Tuesday that the customs office had imposed measures several days before to strengthen control over shipments from Black Sea ports and that the action had already delayed departure of at least five vessels with grain.

 

Analysts said the additional measures could be explained as an attempt to regulate exports of grain for food after poor harvests of milling wheat and food rye.

 

Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk this week said the share of milling wheat in the 2010 wheat crop was likely to fall by 15% compared with the 2009 harvest and could total about nine million tonnes.

 

Analysts have forecast a milling wheat harvest of about six million tonnes this year.