The difference between the price of wheat at the beginning of the year and in late December is around 364 lei (more than EUR80) per ton. In the first few days of January one ton of wheat sold in Romania for an average RON756 and in mid December the price reached RON1,120 per ton. With EUR100,000 an investor could have bought 571 tons of wheat at the beginning of the year.
The yield that resulted from the increase in the price of wheat exceeds more than six-fold the interest rate of 5%-7% per year that could have been obtained had the money been kept in a bank deposit.
The rise in the price of wheat was almost double the 26% growth rate for shares of Romanian investment fund Fondul Proprietatea (FP.RO).
The maximum yield could have been obtained especially by a major player such as a trader or a large-sized agricultural producer who has their own storage facilities, so that the costs of storing the raw material would be minimal.
The rise in the price of wheat took place amid negative harvest estimates. In 2012, farmers harvested only 4.7 million tons of wheat, one third less than in 2011 as a result of bad weather conditions.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)