French wheat exports outside the European Union reached their highest monthly level of the 2016/17 season in April, buoyed by large shipments to North Africa and Egypt, but total exports remained behind last season, customs data showed on Thursday. French wheat exports suffered a sharp drop in volume this season after the EU's top producer recorded its worst harvest in three decades.
France exported 709,577 tonnes of soft wheat outside the EU in April, more than double the 315,509 tonnes in March, the data showed. This put total exports since the start of the 2016/17 season on July 1 stood at 4.07 million tonnes, down 58 percent from last season. Algeria remained France's largest export market and recorded in April the second-largest volume booked so far in the season. April also saw the first shipments of French wheat to Egypt in the 2016/17 campaign, at 126,000 tonnes, and a large volume exported to Morocco, at 128,362 tonnes. Including sales to other members of the EU, French wheat exports totalled 1.3 million tonnes, putting the total in the first 10 months of the season at 16 million tonnes.