The Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA) does not rule out that Ukraine may ban wheat exports from the beginning of December 2012, and hopes this will be introduced officially.
“We’ve been told that if we continue exporting wheat after December 1, the state may take certain measures, but they did not specify them. We’ve asked that in the case of a ban on [wheat] exports, that they make it official,” UGA President Volodymyr Klymenko said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.
He also suggested that such a ban might be in effect until May or June 2013, when the situation with the future harvest would become clear.
According to Klymenko, traders are currently getting prepared for such scenario, having stopped concluding new export contracts on wheat.
“We’re now fulfilling our commitments regarding 5.5 million tonnes, this will be until December 1. No one plans wheat exports for December,” he said.
He said market operators have received a verbal agreement from the Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry to their proposal that the export of 5.5 million tonnes of wheat be allowed until December 1, 2012.
Klymenko said that in addition to limitations on wheat exports, the ministry is considering that products made from wheat be included on the list of the products whose export is banned. He said that market operators believe that a ban on the export of products made of wheat is inadmissible.
“This decision [on a possible ban on the export of products made from wheat] is absolutely wrong both from an economic or any other point of view,” he said.
Klymenko claims that Ukraine’s wheat export potential in the current season is estimated at 6.5 million tonnes.
“We see that 6.5 million tonnes of wheat could be exported without any threat to the country’s food security,” he said.
He said such figures, in particular, take into account the fact that the Agrarian Fund has almost two million tonnes of wheat available, and the situation with winter grain crops is also quite good.
Rodion Rybchynsky, the head of APK-Inform’s business project service in turn said that the total supply of wheat during the current season is estimated 23.4 million tonnes, with domestic demand for it being about 12 million tonnes.
“De facto Ukraine’s wheat export potential is 9 million tonnes,” he said.
He also said real stocks of wheat should be considered when assessing possible exports.
The Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry and grain traders originally agreed to cap wheat exports at 4 million tonnes in the 2012/2013 marketing year. The ministry later on raised the limit on wheat exports to 5 million tonnes, noting that the amount could have been shipped by the middle of November already. Then grain traders pledged to stop wheat exports from Ukraine from November 15, 2012.
Ukrainian Agricultural Policy and Food Minister Mykola Prysiazhniuk recently announced an increase in the forecast for possible wheat exports, to 5.5 million tonnes.
According to the ministry, Ukraine had exported 4.4 million tonnes of wheat by November 7, 2012.
