February 23, 2011

Ukraine mulls wheat export quota increase

Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers is considering raising wheat export quotas by 500,000-800,000 tonnes by the end of the current marketing year, reported Agriculture Policy Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk.

"The problem is that there are about 21 million tonnes of grain registered as remaining (in Ukraine), including 10 million tonnes belonging to individuals. Our task for today is to verify the actual availability of this grain; if the stock (of grain at non-certified elevators) is confirmed, we can increase quotas for corn export by 2-2.5 million tonnes and for wheat export by 500,000-800,000 tonnes," he said.

Let us recall that earlier Prysyazhnyuk said that another analysis of the volume of grain stored by farmers was carried out on Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's instruction.

"There is an instruction by the prime minister to submit proposals based on the analysis of grain stock within two weeks," the minister said.

It was reported that Ukraine prolonged grain export quotas till April 2011.

For its part, the US government expressed its dissatisfaction with the Ukrainian grain market policy.