Barley and corn tax hike revives demand for wheat exports from Russia: Refinitiv Agriculture
Barley and corn dominated Russian grain exports for three consecutive spring months. The pace of wheat exports from Russia in spring 2021 fell to its lowest levels in the past five seasons due to the export tax effective from February 2021, Refinitiv Agriculture writes.
Refinitiv monitoring suggests that exporters will again focus on wheat exports in June.
As reported, the share of barley and corn in Russian grain exports in the first half of the 2020/21 season (July/June) varied between 10 and 20%. In March, the volume of these coarse grains in Russian grain exports rose to 60% and reached almost 70% in May. In addition, exporters shipped barley and corn on lower export duties compared to wheat: EUR 10 and EUR 25 per ton vs. EUR 50 per ton.
"Corn headed the May shipments. Its export totalled 620,000 t, or more than 37% of staple grains export, according to Eikon commodity flow data. In the last weeks of May, exporters almost ceased purchases of coarse grains due to the impending transition from fixed to floating tax," the message reads.
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As per available data, the tax on corn and barley will increase to USD 52.2 and USD 39.6 per ton from 2 June 2021, while the tax on wheat will fall to USD 28.1 per ton, which will support wheat exports in the near future. Exporters have already targeted at least 1.15 mln t of wheat for delivery by the end of the 2020/21 season.
Staple grains export from Ukraine has come to 41.85 mln t so far 2020/21. As of May 31, corn supply dropped by 26% YoY, barley by 15%.