Consultancy Strategie Grains on Thursday raised its estimate for European Union soft wheat exports this season to take account of large sales from Germany, although French exports were revised lower as they lost competitiveness.
In its monthly supply and demand report, Strategie Grains pegged soft wheat exports outside the EU including Britain in the 2019/20 season at 31.2 million tonnes, up 600,000 tonnes on the previous month.
This was now more than 10 million tonnes above the 20.9 million tonnes exported last season. "The revision is mainly due to higher sales than expected from Germany, mainly to Turkey, although this was partly compensated by a cut in French export estimates due a lower competitiveness to Egypt and Morocco," Strategie Grains analyst Laurent Crastre said.
German soft wheat exports were seen at 4.2 million tonnes, up from 3.4 million tonnes expected in February, while French exports were put at 12.8 million tonnes, down from 13.3 million forecast last month.
"Morocco has not announced that it would extend the period during which it suspends import taxes. We expect it to come soon because crops are deteriorating but in the meantime we will keep a rather low number (for French exports)," Crastre said.
Baltic countries' exports were revised higher this month due to bigger than expected sales to China and sub-Saharan Africa, he said. French farm office FranceAgriMer on Wednesday increased its forecast for French soft wheat exports outside the EU this season for the sixth month in a row, to 12.7 million tonnes.
France has seen an acceleration in wheat loadings in recent months but Crastre said the sharp fall in the rouble in the past weeks would hurt its competitiveness against Russian wheat, notably on North African markets. The spike of the euro against the dollar could also hamper EU export prospects against Russian wheat.
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