December 5, 2008

Russian grain exports are estimated to have shrunk to 1.6 million tonnes to 1.8 million tonnes in November from 2.9 million tonnes in October, while wheat exports fell to 1.45 million tonnes to 1.55 million tonnes from 2.55 million tonnes.

Exports totalled 10.8 million tonnes from the start of the 2008/09 season in July, and are continuing to decline.

The main factor, which contains exports, is a stabilisation of domestic prices resulting from an increase of the government purchases, which stopped the price decline.

The government purchased 200,000 tonnes of grain in September, 400,000 tonnes in October, 1.4 million tonnes in November and 450,000 tonnes in the first two December tenders.

The competitiveness of Russian exports against Ukrainian shipments is going down as the Russian rouble fell against the dollar, but it was stable against the euro and rose by 33 percent against the Ukrainian currency.

The decline in freight rates does not favour Russian exports as a low difference in rates between Russian, European and US exporters may make Russian exports competitive only if they lower offer prices or supply grain of higher quality.

The table below shows the monthly exports of wheat in 2006/07, 2007/08 and July-October 2008/09.