Vietnam’s 5% broken rice were offered at their lowest since July 2023 at $515-$520 per metric ton, down from last week’s $520-$525, traders said. “The slight fall in prices could have reflected the fact that an Indonesian official said earlier this month that the country might not import rice in 2025,” a trader based in Ho Chi Minh City said.

Indonesia is a major market for Vietnamese rice, after the Philippines. In the first 10 months of this year, Indonesia imported 1.1 million tons of Vietnamese rice, accounting for 14.2% of total exports.

However, another trader based in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang said he believed Indonesia will keep importing rice from Vietnam next year.

“The Philippines earlier said it would reduce imports but ended up importing more,” the second trader said. Prices of India’s 5% broken parboiled variety were steady at $440-$447 per ton this week, its lowest since July 2023. Indian 5% broken white rice was quoted at $440-$450 per ton.

Supplies from the new season crop are likely to jump in the next few weeks, said a Kolkata-based trader.

India’s rice inventories surged to an all-time high in November, sources said last week, nearly three times the government’s target.

“Wheat production prospects are tightening and farmers are not selling,” said one trader in Singapore. “We see an upside in prices.” The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was up 1.6% at $6.08-3/4 a bushel, as of 0546 GMT, having hit its highest since Oct. 3 earlier in the session. Soybeans added 0.3% to $10.23 a bushel and corn gained 0.7% at $4.23-3/4 a bushel.

Harsh weather is reducing wheat production in major global exporters, cutting inventories that have already been projected to hit nine-year lows. The Rosario grains exchange on Wednesday trimmed its estimate for the 2024/25 wheat harvest to 19.5 million metric tons, down from a previous estimate of 20.5 million tons.

Russia has sown 13 million hectares with winter grain so far this year and is aiming to sow 20 million hectares in total, the same area as last year, Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut said on Wednesday. The Sovecon consultancy warned on Sept. 25 that wheat sowing rates in Russia have fallen to an 11-year low, clouding the outlook for the 2025 grain harvest in the world’s top wheat exporter.

Traders were shifting attention toward monthly US government crop forecasts on Friday, including updated estimates of the US corn and soybean harvests after projections of record yields for both crops last month.

Commodity funds were net sellers of CBOT corn, soybean and soymeal futures contracts on Wednesday and net buyers of CBOT wheat futures, traders said. They were net even in soyoil futures, traders said.

The French firm cut its estimate of EU soft wheat exports in the 2021/22 season to June to 31.4 million tonnes from the 32.5 million forecast in March, when it had anticipated a bigger shift in demand from Ukrainian and Russian supplies towards EU wheat.

However, Strategie Grains increased its projection of EU soft wheat exports in 2022/23 by 0.5 million tonnes to 30.3 million, factoring in a protracted conflict in Ukraine and poor crop weather in the United States.

It also trimmed by 200,000 tonnes its forecast of EU soft wheat production for 2022/23, now seen at 126.7 million tonnes, more than 3 million tonnes below this season’s output.

EU wheat supply is still expected to be balanced next season, thanks to lower demand for wheat in animal feed because of difficulties in the livestock sector, it said.

The consultancy reduced by 1.5 million tonnes its forecast for soft wheat use in feed while also reducing its estimate of expected feed demand for maize (corn) and barley by about 1 million tonnes each.