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Ukraine delays grain export quotas decision

25 August 2010 12:35 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Ukraine, the worldâ€™s biggest barley exporter, postponed a decision on imposing quotas for overseas sales of cereal crops, a week after the countryâ€™s grain association said the government should delay the curbs, BusinessWeek reported.

â€œEverything depends on exportsâ€ and the decision will be delayed â€œindefinitely,â€ Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk told reporters in Kiev today. The minister on Aug. 17 said the government planned to set export quotas of 1 million metric tons for barley and 1.5 million tons for wheat from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31. A decision that was scheduled to be taken the following day was postponed until today.

Russia, the worldâ€™s third-biggest wheat producer, banned grain exports as of Aug. 15 after the countryâ€™s worst drought in at least a half century ruined crops. Wheat traded in Chicago, a global benchmark, as much as doubled since early June on concern that the drought in Russia, flooding in Canada and a lack of rain in Kazakhstan and the European Union would limit supply.

Ukraineâ€™s grain association, representing 80 percent of exporters, wrote to Prime Minister Mykola Azarov requesting a delay in the quotas and for a higher limit to be set.

National grain exports totaled 21.1 million tons in the marketing year that ended June 30, down from a record 24.7 million tons the previous year, according to Kiev-based researcher UkrAgroConsult.

Ukraine will sell 5.4 million tons of barley overseas in the 12 months ending in September, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. Wheat exports in the 12 months ending in June 2011 will be 6 million tons, the USDA says, 2 million tons less than it estimated in July.