ANKARA: The Turkish Grain Board (TMO) continues to intervene in the Turkish corn market due the ending of its duty-free status with Russia. The board, a state intervention agency, has the authority to import 500,000 tonnes of duty free corn until the end of 2017, according to a report from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Turkey has been turning to supplies of grain from the E.U. and other regions after Turkey’s sudden ending of duty-free status under the scope of the Inward Processing Regime (IPR) for Russian wheat, corn, and some other products in March effectively stopped imports. According to market sources, the starch industry is experiencing difficulty in sourcing non-Russian corn supplies. The starch industry annually uses around 500,000 tonnes of corn in order to export starch/fructose. In other words, the starch industry imports 500,000 tonnes of corn in the scope of the IPR. The TMO purchased roughly 120,000 tonnes of corn through two international import tenders in April 2017 in order to meet corn demand in Turkey. After 77,000 tonnes of corn for feed usage was purchased duty free through a tender on April 19, the TMO also completed another corn import tender on April 25, the USDA said.
