Ukrainian agriculture analyst ProAgro said on Thursday it would increase its forecast for wheat exports in the 2012/13 season due to a recent agreement between the government and traders to lift a cap on wheat sales abroad. “We forecast that additional exports will not exceed 200,000 tonnes and the overall volume could be about 6.7 million tonnes,” ProAgro director Mykola Vernytsky said.
ProAgro, which estimates the 2012 wheat harvest at 14.3 million tonnes, had originally forecast exports at 6.5 million tonnes for the 2012/13 season, which runs from July to June. The Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation (UAC) lobby group said this week the government had lifted restrictions on wheat exports introduced last year after a sharp drop in the harvest.
Last September, the ministry and traders’ unions agreed to cap 2012/13 export volumes after a drought and a spike in foreign demand threatened to leave Ukraine without enough grain for domestic consumption. Worried about a potential deficit, the government forced traders to limit wheat exports to 5.5 million tonnes in the 2012/13 season, although it later raised the cap to 6.3 million tonnes.
