AWB Ltd, selling its last Australian wheat crop as monopoly exporter, has seen strong demand from Asia and the Middle East for grain from a small drought-depleted crop, the company said. "We've got strong commitment from Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Sudan and the Pacific Island markets," spokesman Peter McBride told Reuters.
Strong sales late last year had continued into the New Year, he said. However, a comparatively small crop of around 12.7 million tonnes for 2007/08, now just harvested, after another small crop the year before, meant that AWB had to restrict sales to some markets. "We'll focus on key markets that will obviously benefit the Australian wheat farmer going forward," he said.
AWB said it could continue to service its key markets even though exports in the shipping year to September 30 would be much less than normal, he said. A December forecast by the government unit the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics that Australia would export around 6.6 million tonnes of wheat in the year to September 2008 looked about right, he said.
The bureau's forecast was based on an expected drawdown of 307,000 tonnes from depleted national stocks. Exports in 2006/07 amounted to 8.7 million tonnes, after a drawdown of 6.2 million tonnes from stocks, after drought limited the national harvest to only 9.8 million tonnes.
In 2005/06, the last year not hit by drought, Australia exported 16 million tonnes of wheat. AWB expected its national export pool for 2008 to be over 4 million tonnes, McBride said. Australia is exporting its limited supplies into a strong international wheat market, with prices at record highs as buyers scramble to secure supplies.