Morocco 2010 wheat imports up

Following are selected highlights from a report issued by a US Department of Agriculture attache in Morocco: "Morocco's grain area in 2010/11 is estimated at 4.93 million hectares, with 3.04 million HA planted with wheat and 1.89 million HA with barley.
The grain crop is developing nicely under good growing conditions. The GOM revised total grain production forecast upward to 9 million tonnes, of which 5.9 million tonnes is for wheat and 3.1 million tonnes for barley. Morocco's wheat imports in 2010 reached 3.062 million tonnes, an increase of 30 percent over imports in 2009.
Wheat imports from the US totalled 394,784 tonnes and accounted for 13 percent share of the market. To alleviate the impact of rising international wheat prices, the GOM suspended duties on wheat imports and established an import subsidy scheme to reimburse wheat importers the difference between a government set-price and the actual import costs.