North Africa still the key market for EU wheat

North African countries remained key destinations for EU common wheat exports in July-October, with deliveries rising on the year, mainly as Morocco upped its French take amid uncertainty over Black Sea supply.

Algeria, Morocco and Egypt became jointly the top importers of common wheat from the EU in the first four months of the 2022-23 marketing year (July-June). They received a combined 4.2mn t, or 36.3pc of the bloc’s overall shipments — up from 3.1mn t, or 27.1pc, a year earlier, preliminary European Commission data show (see chart).

Morocco hiked its purchases of French wheat in the face of disrupted supply from Ukraine and Russia. About 1.42mn t of EU common wheat was exported to Morocco in weeks 1-18 of 2022-23, compared with nothing a year earlier.

But EU exports to Algeria — the biggest importer of EU common wheat — fell to 1.54mn t in July-October from 1.9mn t a year earlier. Exports to Egypt were up slightly at 1.23mn t, compared with 1.2mn t.

France provided most of the EU common wheat shipments to north Africa, becoming the EU’s largest wheat exporter in the first four months of this marketing year. French wheat shipments reached 4.43mn t in weeks 1-18, up from 2.57mn t in the same period last year, and bypassed Romania’s supplies, which more than halved on the year to 1.6mn t from 3.5mn t.

Overall EU common wheat exports in weeks 1-18 reached 11.54mn t, up from 11.44mn t a year earlier.

Spain leads the bloc’s corn imports

Spain has doubled its corn imports this marketing year, with 3.78mn t arriving in July-October, against 1.86mn t a year earlier. This has made Spain — where grain production has been reduced by drought — the EU’s biggest corn importer this season.

Overall EU corn imports totalled 9.57mn t in weeks 1-18, up from 4.43mn t a year earlier, with Romanian, Polish and Hungarian imports bolstered by growing overland supply from Ukraine.

Ukraine supplied 3.66mn t of corn to the EU in July-October, up by 2.61mn t on the year and accounting for 38pc of EU corn imports.

Brazil accounted for 54.8pc of the EU’s imports, having supplied 5.25mn t, up from 2.74mn t a year earlier (see chart).

EU common wheat exports in Jul-Oct mn t

EU corn imports in Jul-Oct in

Tags: Egypt, export, Romania, Algeria, EU, France, wheat, Morocco