Miller Magazine Issue: 138 June 2021

66 COVER STORY MILLER / june 2021 is also very early to rely on this figure) to 27 MMT and at -3.2 MMT y/y for Canada to 32 MMT. Fight for destinations Africa is going to stay #1 destination for the Black Sea wheat. Egypt should stay a key importer here, with ex- pectation of increase in purchases in 2021/22 MY by 200 KMT y/y. But on this market, the competition will be very tough between the Russian, Ukrainian, French and Ro- manian origins. The export duty on Russian wheat caus- es uncertainties and worsens its competitiveness even despite good crop prospects. Evidence of this was the failure of Russian grain in Egypt's first tender for the pur- chase of wheat of the delivery in the new season, when the victory went to the Romanian rival. Algeria, Ethiopia and Sudan are seen to raise wheat import by 1.1 MMT, 0.5 MMT and 0.2 MMT y/y. Algeria, which is rebuilding its stocks, is a focus for the French wheat, Ethiopian market should be shared more equally between major origins, Sudan looks to be EU and Russian competition space. Morocco, Tunisia and Nigeria are expected to cut wheat imports, which means less possibilities for Ukrainian grain in the first two countries and less interest for the Russian wheat from Nigeria. Middle East is expected to stay mainly Russian af- fair, due to the country’s dominance in Turkey, which is expected to increase wheat import by 1 MMT y/y, as per the USDA’s May report. Also, Russian wheat behaves very impressive on Iranian and Syrian mar- kets. Russian products enjoy a preferential access to the Iranian market, granted by the provisional trade agreement between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union. As for Syria, Interfax was reporting, that Russia plans to supply Syria with up to 1 MMT of wheat in 2021, of which 350 KMT have already been delivered this spring. Jordan is supposed to reduce purchases in 21/22 season by about 300 KMT, thus more Roma- nian wheat could go to other destinations, most possi- bly Egypt, Philippines, Israel, Sudan, Lebanon or Libya. Competition in Asia is promising to be tough. Ukrainian wheat should improve its positions in Indo- nesia and in the Philippines, as well as both Ukrainian and Russian crops should have good demand from Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Chinese market is going to be mostly the USA/Canadian/French competition and here the volume of import is believed to decrease by 0.5 MMT y/y. The major decrease in Asian wheat im- port is expected by 2.8 MMT y/y for Pakistan. This des-