November 26, 2013

Romania buys Bulgarian wheat for export at high profit

To be able to gain high profit, Romania had been buying Bulgarian grain in mass amounts for low prices in the summer, in order to export it later for a higher amount, Standart daily reports citing National Association of Grain head Angel Vukodinov.

Bulgaria's northern neighbours signed a large contract to export 60,000 tonnes of wheat to Egypt. Demand for wheat in North Africa pushed up prices to a five-month high of €260 (US$352) per tonne. Most of Romania's exports consist of Bulgarian wheat bought up in masses for much lower prices in the summer.

According to Vukodinov, there are five large multinational companies which are benefiting from the current depreciation of the Bulgarian wheat. They make solid profits from exporting what they have bought up for suppressed prices in Bulgaria, he says.

Bulgaria's wheat harvest this year was very good both in quantity and in quality with over 4.8 million tonnes production. Late last month the quantity exported for wheat was 4.2 million tonnes. According to unofficial data, Bulgaria currently disposes over 800,000-900,000 tonnes of free grain for export.