Russia: Grain exports to South East Asia to reach unprecedented 1 mln tons in 2011-12

Russia’s wheat and barley exports to South East Asia in the 2011-2012 agricultural year may reach about one million tons, head of Russia’s Grain Union Arkady Zlochevsky was quoted as saying by Blackseagrain.com on October, 3.

“We would like to export one million tons, an unprecedented figure, to South East Asia already this year,” he said.

According to Zlochevsky, Russia exported its crops to South East Asia only in the test regime after the first grain conference in South East Asia in February 2010. Now, in his, words, Russia has begun wholesale exports, which are made in compliance with higher requirements than to traditional markets. “But so far we are meeting such requirements,” he noted.

In the past six months after the grain exports ban was lifted, Russia has exported to South East Asia about 480,000 tons of flour. “This is a record-breaking figure,” he added.

“The most optimistic forecast [for 2011] is 93 million tons, although it is obvious already now that 90 million tons are a guaranteed harvest,” he said, adding that 83 million tons have already been harvested. “This is bunker weight,” he noted.

According to Zlochevsky, final harvesting figures will be available by December. At the same time, he admitted that weather may influence the harvest. Thus, in his words, “there were too many rains” in the Volga region.

According to Zlochevsky’s forecasts, Russia’s wheat harvest is expected to be at 50-55 million tons, and barley harvest – at 16-17 million tons. “It will be enough to ensure exports although the quality of wheat has somewhat deteriorated as compared with the last year’s harvest,” he said.

Mr. Zlochevsky said it was initially planned to sow winter crops on an overall area of 17.8 million hectares but time has been lost in some regions, so the plans dropped to 17 million hectares.

“We will have to compensate what we have lost in terms of winter crops in the spring sowing campaign, virtually as we did last year,” he added.

Last year the nation’s grain crop fell by 37 percent due to drought. It came to 60.9 million tons, including 41.46 million tons of wheat, 8.32 million tons of barley, 5.34 million tons of sunflower seeds, 3.0 million tons of corn, and 1.06 million tons of rice, according to Rosstat, the Federal State Statistics Service.

05 October, 2011