KIEV: Agriculture consultancy UkrAgroConsult has raised its forecast for Ukraine’s 2017/18 wheat exports to 16.5 million tonnes, up from the previous estimate of 15.5 million tonnes, citing a bigger harvest. Ukraine has already completed its 2017 wheat harvest, threshing a total of 26.6 million tonnes of the commodity in bunker weight, which is 5-7 percent higher than clean weight.
UkrAgroConsult said it expects this year’s clean weight harvest to be 26 million tonnes, against 26.4 million tonnes harvested in 2016. Ukraine exported a record 17.5 million tonnes of wheat in the 2016/17 season, which runs from July to June. The consultancy said that Ukraine exported 808,700 tonnes of wheat in July, the first month of the new 2017/18 season, up 11 percent from the same month last year. It said that Thailand, Indonesia and Egypt were the key markets for Ukrainian wheat, which is also exported to Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Nigeria and Kenya.
