Today, traders from Singapore informed that Indian milling companies as a whole have bought 500,000 tons of wheat in Australia and France. The deliveries will take place in July to September of this year.
India's wheat imports could be five times as big, a survey among experts had revealed last week that India has an import demand of 2.75 million tonnes after drought by the weather phenomenon El Nino, as well as rain at the wrong time led to the smallest wheat crop in 2011. Some of the respondents go out up to 5 million tons even by imports when the import duties from the current 25%.
The Indian Millers between 237 and 243 USD/ton c & f for Australian wheat with 12.5% protein, as well as for French wheat with 11% protein pay around 200 to 205 USD/tonne for the recently completed transactions. They bought 350,000 tons in Australia and 150,000 tons in France.
The official crop estimate for India is located at 94 million tons of wheat, traders assume currently but that that 5 to 6 million tonnes would be less realistic. Last year, India produced 86,53 million tons of wheat. That had already resulted in that intervention stocks had to be attacked; they have fallen now at 22.8 million metric tons, and which is below the target of 30 million tons.
The Government originally planned to buy back 30 million tons of wheat for local farmers, and to intervene, but that doesn't seem to succeed, just like in the previous year. Traders expect that the imports would be accordingly higher.
