Logistical problems could cause Ukraine's 2016-17 grain exports to fall slightly below the forecast 41 million tonnes, Agriculture Minister Taras Kutovy said on Friday. "We are keeping our export forecast at 41 million tonnes, but it could be less due to the logistics issue ... this (decrease) could be less than a million tonnes," he said.
Ukrainian grain traders' union UZA said last month that 2016/17 grain exports could be 7 million tonnes lower than originally expected due to a lack of railway grain wagons and tightened rules on grain transportation by trucks. The union said that traders each day order up to 3,700 wagons while the railway was supplying around 2,200 wagons. Kutovy said the problem was not yet completely solved.
The ministry has said Ukraine is likely to harvest an all-time high of 64 million tonnes of grain this year. But Kutovy on Friday said that output had already exceeded that expectation and had reached 64.2 million tonnes. He said some fields under maize were still unthreshed due to poor weather. The harvest includes 26.1 million tonnes of wheat, 26.1 million tonnes of maize and 9.5 million tonnes of barley, Kutovy said.
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