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Russia's online grain export quotas will continue, analysts say. On Saturday (April 25, 2020) very large traders were rushing to get customs documents, for future shipments. Analysts say the supply of the world's largest wheat exporter will continue.
Russia set a quota for grain exports of 7 million tons for April through June following the outbreak of the virus. Russia's online calculator showed here that as of Saturday only 873,179 tons remained available for export based on the quota.
Analysts said the speed at which the quota was being snapped up - almost 2 million tons in 24 hours - showed these were not real export orders but a consequence of getting the necessary paperwork in place to prepare for exports later.
“To understand this situation one has to know how the Russian customs work,” said Dmitry Rylko, the head of the IKAR agriculture consultancy.
“The dynamic, which we observe in the quota now, is caused by traders rushing to get so-called semi-complete declarations at customs for their supplies planned for May or June - all to make sure that they have a place in this quota.”
“These semi-complete declarations are already counted by the quota and are going to be transformed into final customs documents for exports, when these traders ship the grain in coming months,” Rylko said.
In reality, Russia’s April grain exports are likely to total little more than 4 million tons, leaving almost 3 million tons for exports in May and June even though the quota is formally exhausted, he said.
It remains unclear how the agriculture ministry will respond. It has said that Russia will suspend grain exports until July 1 once its export quota has been exhausted. It expected this to happen in mid-May.
The ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Russia has exported 3.2 million tons of grain so far in April, SovEcon, another consultancy, said, citing port data. That’s far less than the 6.1 million tons the online quota calculator shows as declared for export. Find more...
Source: Online/SZK
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