Farm agency FranceAgriMer raised its forecast of French soft wheat exports outside the European Union in 2018/19, confirming its expectation of a rebound in shipments this season.
In monthly supply and demand data, FranceAgriMer pegged French soft wheat exports to non-EU destinations at 8.75 million tonnes, up from its initial outlook of 8.5 million last month and compared with 8.1 million in 2017/18.
Trend Reversal
Projected soft wheat exports within the EU were lowered to 7.9 million tonnes from 8.1 million last month, reinforcing an anticipated reversal of the trend in the past two seasons when intra-EU trade outpaced exports beyond the bloc.
FranceAgriMer last month pointed to strong sales to Algeria and signs of a recovery of market share in West Africa, but some traders are cautious about the prospects after a slowdown in loadings in the past month.
French exporters group Synacomex said on Tuesday it expected soft wheat exports outside the EU to reach 8.3 million tonnes.
Projected Stocks
Projected soft wheat stocks in France at the end of the 2018/19 season on June 30 were trimmed to 2.4 million tonnes from 2.5 million tonnes last month, FranceAgriMer's data showed.
The office made a sharper cut to projected maize (corn) stocks, lowering its forecast to 2.0 million tonnes from 2.5 million.
The reduction reflected both a cut to expected harvest supply and a shift in livestock feed demand from wheat and barley towards maize, the data showed.
The barley stocks forecast was raised to 1.1 million tonnes from 955,000 tonnes, mainly due to the reduced estimate of feed demand.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
