Incomplete wheat export data in the past four months from France, the largest grain exporter in the European Union, has angered traders. There are technical errors in the French system. Traders are trying to better balance supply and demand in the face of lower inventory levels and record prices.
The technical problem with the country's customs service, which sends data for France to the European Commission, is becoming a major issue as the EU gets off to a swift start to the 2021/22 export season.
EU wheat prices hit record prices this week as potential rain damage to Australian crops raised the prospect of more EU exports than expected.
The Commission's last weekly update last Tuesday showed that the EU had exported 10.27 million tonnes of common wheat or common wheat from 27 countries since the start of the season on July 1st.
According to the EU Commission, French exports amount to around 822,000 tons, compared to around 3.2 million tons in the loading data compiled by Refinitiv.
This suggests that EU common wheat exports so far this season are around a quarter above the level indicated by the Commission.
Because of this data problem, the Commission has not published full French data since July.
The French customs service is working on the bug, which is justified by a change in the database, and should be fixed in the coming weeks, said an official from the French finance ministry.
The technical problem has also affected the data for other cereal crops, in particular the large French barley exports.
In the 2020/21 season, which ended on June 30, the weekly EU data was delayed once due to technical errors. At that time, the UK's exit from the bloc made correct data collection difficult.
Source
Hansa Terminhandel GmbH