Romania’s wheat production rose by 26% in 2011 to 7.2 million tons. Russia witnessed a stronger advance, of 35%, to 56 million tons of wheat this year. The other producers in the region, Ukraine, Turkey and Bulgaria registered an increase of up to 25% in their wheat production compared to last year, according to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. The Romanian wheat production covers 6.7% in the Black Sea countries’ overall wheat output, which amounts to 107.3 million tons.
“Romania has not been a major player on the Black Sea wheat market historically, as not everything it produced could go abroad because there were few high-performance farms that could send wheat abroad,” explains Gabriel Popescu, a professor with the Agrifood and Environmental Economics Faculty, part of the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies.
While last year Romania fully profited from Russia’s absence from international markets, this summer Russia resumed exports and the Romanian wheat will compete with the Russian one for deliveries to Northern Africa and the Middle East.
“We lost the Egyptian market a long time ago, but these bridgeheads can be reactivated. This market can be won back only through highly performing agriculture. It is only this way that we can come up with prices lower than those of Russians or Ukrainians,” Popescu explains.
Egypt is the world’s largest wheat buyer and will import 10 million tons this year, as estimated by USDA. Calculated in cash, the wheat this country buys from abroad is worth over EUR2 billion, taking into account an average price of EUR200 per ton.
Romania has recently managed to enter Egypt’s market after Ameropa Grains won an auction to provide 60,000 tons of wheat.
Tapping the Egyptian market was the second victory for Romania, after one month ago it covered part of a wheat order for 150,000 tons placed by Jordan, according to agrimoney.com.
The Middle East and North African wheat market is appealing for traders as countries in this region will import 24.3 million tons of wheat by the end of the farming year, according to the August estimates of USDA.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu; Editing by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)