Every year late May Roma gathers grain traders and millers from Italy and other Mediterranean countries. Annual grain conference Romacereali organized by Chamber of Commerce of Roma and under support of Agricultural Ministry of Italy was held in Ara Pacis Museum being one of the most beautiful places of the city. This year the conference included mini-exhibition devoted to quality aspects of milling wheat.
The second year in row marketing director of APK-Inform Svetlana Sinkovska represents Black Sea grain market at the conference. More than 250 participants from 11 countries including UK, USA, The Netherlands, France, Ukraine etc. took part in the event.
Darren Cooper (IGC) was the key speaker presenting global trends of wheat market in 2014/15 MY. He pointed out downward price trend on the markets of key grains with several position hitting lowest rates in 5 years. Moreover, Darren mentioned two key factors that influenced on wheat market development this season – higher USD rate and growing role of China. “The first one changes the structure of world grain trade. As to China, the main intrigue is unknown grain stocks, but these stocks significantly influence on global supply/demand balance of main grains”, - explained the expert. At the same time, quality of Chinese grain in stocks is doubtful. “Therefore, IGC recommends focus on grain exports flows but not on stocks. That will help to see global market situation better”, - summarized the expert. Forecasts of global wheat market development in new season were the most interesting part of D.Cooper presentation. The expert expects world wheat trade in 2015/16 MY at 149 mln tonnes down about 3 mln tonnes per year. At the same time, he told that Black Sea countries would stay strong in new season. “IGC forecasts that Black Sea countries will export 37 mln tonnes of wheat in 2015/16 MY”, - pointed out the expert. (APK-Inform forecast is higher at 38.8 mln tonnes). Talking about dynamic of exports of other grains in 2014/15 MY D.Cooper pointed out segment of sorghum “that was burst by Chinese imports”. “China is going to import about 7 mln tonnes of sorghum by the end of the current season that 2 times exceeds previous year result and makes up about 76% of total world sorghum trade volume”, - stated the expert.
Durum wheat market is one of the key topics discussed at Romacereali, as Italy is one of the leading consumers of the grain in the world. The year 2014 saw the lowest level of world durum wheat production at 32.4 mln tonnes, stated Rutger Koekoekya, U.S. Wheat Associates. “Durum wheat production decline lead to record decrease of its stocks by 40% per year to 4.5 mln tonnes in 2014.” Algeria, Turkey and Canada faced the most sizable reduction of durum wheat production. Moreover, the quality of US and EU durum was not so good in 2014. “That’s why we saw the growing premium for quality durum and price gap between soft and durum wheat”, - stated the analyst. The expert expects increase of durum wheat production by 11% up to 36.4 mln tonnes in 2015 due to higher production in USA, Canada, Europa and North Africa.
Results of Black Sea exports, Russian wheat export duty, intrigue around real volume of Kazakhstan durum wheat production were the most closely watched parts of Svetlana Sinkovska presentation. The expert also described the influence of devaluation of national currencies into agricultural products exports, volumes and destinations of Ukrainian wheat exports and operating principle of memorandum that Ukrainian exporters and Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food sing every year. Moreover, S.Sinkovska voiced the latest forecasts of APK-Inform as to wheat production and exports in Black Sea countries in 2015/16 MY: Ukraine: production – 23.6 mln tonnes, exports – 11 mln tonnes, Russia: production – 55 mln tonnes, exports – 23-23.5 mln tonnes, Kazakhstan: production – 13.3 mln tonnes, exports – 4.5 mln tonnes.
On the sidelines, on top of everything else participants discussed planting campaign in Black Sea countries, weather and uptrend in Ukrainian grain export despite difficult situation in the country. The result is optimistic: despite the existing risks, Ukraine still is considered as strong competitor on the global grain market and development of outgoing season heats up the interest to Black Sea grain.
