BRASÍLIA: Brazil spoiled an improved world wheat demand picture by revealing that its own imports will fall to the lowest since the 1990s, undermined by a harvest upgraded to an even higher record top. Conab, the official Brazilian crop bureau, cut by 200,000 tonnes to 5.10m tonnes its estimate for Brazil’s wheat imports in 2016-17 – the lowest figure on data going back to the late 1990s. The downgrade followed a series of upbeat headlines for wheat import demand, with Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s top buyers, revealing a tender for 715,000 tonnes of the grain, while Ethiopia tendered for 70,000 tonnes.
Separately, India, where wheat prices hit a record high last month, cut its 10% import tax, fuelling ideas that the country’s harvest this year was well below the official estimate. Indeed, some observers believe that India’s purchases will hit 5m tonnes this season – a figure now in line with that of Brazil, which is a structural importer of the grain, contrasting with its huge exports of the likes of corn, soybeans and sugar.
