November 8, 2011

Ukraine's October grain exports down

Ukraine's October grain exports dropped to 1.28 million tonnes against 1.45 million in September, UkrAgroConsult said on Monday (Nov 7).

It said in a report that the volume had included 760,800 tonnes of corn, 193,900 of wheat and 310,700 of barley.

UkrAgroConsult said Ukrainian corn went mostly to Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, while barley had been exported mostly to Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria. Ukrainian wheat went to Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Bangladesh.

Ukraine plans to boost grain exports to a record 27 million tonnes in the 2011/12 season after what the former Soviet republic expects to be a bumper harvest of about 53 million tonnes of grain in 2011.

Ukraine exported 12.7 million tonnes of grain in 2010/11 from a harvest of 39.2 million.

The Ukrainian Agriculture Confederation grain lobby has said Ukraine exported 4.8 million tonnes of grain in the first four months of the 2011/12 season against about five million in the same period in 2010/11.

It said export duties, introduced in July and cancelled in late October, were the main reason for smaller shipments.

The Farm Ministry last month said duty-free exports would allow Ukraine to ship abroad 27 million tonnes of grain including 11 million tonnes of wheat, 13 million of corn and 3.1 million of barley.

Analysts however said exports would not exceed 24 million tonnes.

Consultancy ProAgro last week said Ukraine could export 9.5 million tonnes of wheat, 3.5 million of barley and 10.5 million of corn in the 2011/12 season.