Italy's maize imports jump, soft wheat up

Imports of maize into Italy, a major grain buyer in Europe, jumped 30.7 percent year on year in the first 11 months of 2011 driven by strong feed-making demand while soft wheat imports rose 6.5 percent, Italian cereals body Anacer said on Friday. Maize imports jumped to 2,338,025 tonnes from 1,788,991 tonnes in the same period of 2010, while soft wheat imports rose to 4,732,778 tonnes from 4,443,864, Anacer said in a statement.
Italian feed makers raised purchases of imported maize to meet an increase in feed consumption which local output could not cover, a senior official at Italian feed makers association Assalzoo said. Italy buys maize abroad to cover 25-30 percent of its demand, with almost all of its maize imports used to make animal feed and most of the inflows coming from Hungary and Romania, according to Assalzoo. Imports of durum wheat used for making pasta fell to 2,076,417 tonnes in the first 11 months of 2011 from 2,340,876 tonnes a year earlier, while barley imports rose to 844,507 tonnes from 792,415, Anacer said.
Anacer did not provide details of grain import origins. Total imports of cereals and oilseeds to Italy rose 3.1 percent to 16,083,961 tonnes worth 4.7 billion euros ($6.13 billion), it said. Exports of rice from Italy, Europe's biggest producer, fell 9.6 percent to 669,435 tonnes, it said. Italy's exports of pasta rose 2.9 percent to 1,509,394 tonnes while exports of cereals-based animal feed rose 6.3 percent to 205,710 tonnes.