February 25, 2008

EU sees increase in corn and sorghum import licenses

European Union licenses to import corn and sorghum rose again in the week ending Feb. 12, keeping the bloc as a large net grain importer for the 2007-08 marketing year, EU data showed Friday (February 25, 2008).

Licenses to import corn rose 202,000 tonnes on the week to total 9.2 million tonnes at 34 weeks into the campaign, which is more than double the same time last year, when licenses tallied 3.5 million tonnes.

Sorghum licenses increased by 45,000 tonnes on the week to bring the marketing year total to 3.8 million tonnes. At the same time last year licenses totaled just 501,000 tonnes.

Partially offsetting the rise in corn and sorghum import licenses, soft wheat export licenses rose by 200,000 tonnes on the week to 4.3 million tonnes.

Thus the EU net grain import figure stayed near steady. At 34 weeks into the campaign, EU licenses to import grain were 7.66 million tonnes more than those to export, up from 7.61 million tonnes more a week ago.

This was in sharp contrast to the same time last year when the EU was a net grain exporter of 3.6 million tonnes.

Traditionally the EU is a net grain exporter, but grain imports rose sharply due to domestic crop-production problems, high feed wheat prices, and insufficient intervention supplies.