Romania's sharply higher maize crop, seen 27 percent up from the 2003 weather-hit harvest, may help the biggest Balkan country boost its duty-free sales to the European Union, traders and officials said on Thursday.
EU candidate Romania, where maize is a staple food for the impoverished 22 million population, was hard hit by scorching temperatures last year when it got 9.5 million tonnes, forcing it to become a net maize importer.
The country, which hopes to join the wealthy bloc in 2007 along with its neighbour Bulgaria, has seen yields plunging to three tonnes per hectare, capping 2003/04 exports to the EU at 20 percent of its annual 149,000-tonne duty-free quota.
"Romania has a chance to fully benefit of its zero-tax quota to the EU provided that climatic conditions don't worsen," Dejan Majistorovic, director of East Point grain trader said.
A senior farm ministry official told Reuters on Thursday the good maize crop would leave about 1.0 million tonnes for export mainly to traditional customers such as Egypt, Turkey or Arab countries.
"This is going to be a seven-year record high," he said.
The official said that last year Romania was forced to import 275,000 tonnes of maize from neighbouring states Ukraine, Moldova and Hungary but the encouraging outlook of the new crop will help it tap again some of its markets.
He said the good harvest was the result of more acreage put under maize and favourable weather conditions. Romania sown 3.22 million hectares with maize for the marketing year 2004/05 against about 3.0 million previously.
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