Ukraine is likely to keep grain exports at a high level in the coming weeks after the government on Tuesday allocated export quotas for the next three months, the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation (UAC) said on Wednesday. Ukraine's exports rose to more than 1 million tonnes in December from 360,000 in November.
Ukrainian grain exports were almost suspended in October-November 2010 when the government introduced 2.7 million tonnes export quotas until the end of last year to prevent a jump in grain prices after a fall in the harvest. In December, the government extended export quotas to include the first quarter of 2011 and increased the volume to 4.2 million tonnes from the initial 2.7 million.
The UAC said in a statement the government had allocated export licences to ship about 1.5 million tonnes of maize and 500,000 tonnes of wheat until March 31. Ukraine, a major producer of wheat, barley and maize, reduced the grain crop by 15 percent to about 39 million tonnes in clean weight in 2010 after a severe drought. The harvest totalled 46 million tonnes in 2009.
A fall in the harvest, and trade curbs, have cut Ukrainian grain exports to about 6.7 million tonnes in the first half of the 2010/11 season from about 14 million in the same period a season earlier. The government has said the country could export 12 to 13 million tonnes of grain in 2010/11 compared to 21.5 million a season ago.
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