PARIS: Soft wheat exports from the European Union in the 2022/23 season that started last month had reached 1.77 million tonnes by July 31, data published by the European Commission showed on Tuesday.

That compared to 1.57 million tonnes by the same week in 2021/22, the data showed.

Unlike in its previous weekly publication, the Commission did not indicate that its grain export and import figures were possibly incomplete.

However, the soft wheat exports appeared smaller than market estimates, particularly for France, the EU’s biggest wheat producer that saw a very busy loading programme in July.

The Commission’s data attributed 453,621 tonnes of soft wheat exports to France for July, whereas port data suggests the country shipped around 1 million tonnes to non-EU countries last month.