In the August report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) raised the forecast of global oilseeds production in 2024/2025 MY by 4.5 mln tonnes to 690.5 mln tonnes due to the growth of soybean and rapeseed production, which partially offset the decline in sunflower, cotton, peanuts and palm kernel production.
Analysts increased global rapeseed production by 0.9 million tons to 88.8 million, mainly due to the expansion of rapeseed production in Russia. World sunflower production was reduced by 2.3 million tons to 52.5 million due to unfavorable weather conditions that affected yields in Ukraine, Russia, the EU, Turkey, Serbia and Moldova.
The USDA’s global soybean production in 2024/2025 is increased by 6.9 million tons to 428.7 million tons due to higher production in the US, Ukraine, Russia, India and Benin. Exports are increased by 1.0 million tons to 181.2 million due to higher exports to the US, Ukraine, Russia and Benin, partially offsetting lower shipments from Argentina. Soybean imports were increased for Egypt, the EU, Iran and Turkey. Global ending stocks of soybeans in 2024/25 MY increased by 6.5 million tons to 134.3 million, mainly due to higher stocks in China, the United States and Argentina, partially offset by lower stocks in Brazil.
In its August report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) slightly lowered its forecast for the corn crop in Ukraine. The decrease compared to July is 1.8%, namely to 27.2 million tons (-0.5 million tons), exports – 24 million tons (-0.5 million tons), ending stocks increased to 0.73 million tons (+0.5 million tons).
World corn production is reduced to 1.219 billion tons (-0.005 billion tons), exports – to 191.47 million tons (-0.34 million tons), carry-over stocks – 310.17 million tons (-1.47 million tons).
Analysts have lowered their estimates of global corn production due to extreme heat and drought in southeastern Europe and the Southern and North Caucasus regions of Russia in July, which affected crop yields. Corn production in Ukraine was reduced, as the expansion of corn production areas was offset by lower yield expectations.
2022-2024 goods trade balance forecast (USD bln)
Source: Open4Business.com.ua
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its August report raised its wheat harvest forecast for Ukraine in the 2024/2025 marketing year (MY, July 2024/June 2025) by 10.8% to 21.6 million tons, and exports by 7.7% to 14 million tons
Analysts also revised upward the domestic consumption of wheat in Ukraine by 10.5% to 7.4 million tons. Ukraine will enter the season with starting residues of 770,000 tons, while a month earlier they amounted to 1.08 million tons. USDA expects that by the end of 2024/2025 MY the country will have 1.05 mln tons of wheat, which is 9.4% higher than the July forecast.
At the same time, USDA forecasts world wheat production for the 2024/2025 season at 798.28 (+ 2.18 million tons from last forecast) and world exports at 214.86 million tons (+ 1.98 million tons). The experts lowered the forecast of wheat ending stocks in the world to 256.62 million tons (- 1.97 million tons).
The Asian Development Bank has approved two loans to Uzbekistan totaling $400 million to implement large-scale reforms in the energy sector aimed at improving its efficiency and competitiveness, as well as developing the country’s financial markets.
ADB’s Director General for Central and West Asia, Evgeny Zhukov, said that the reforms supported by these programs will help create an enabling environment for regulators and companies to play their part in stimulating development by creating reliable domestic financial markets and meeting energy needs while fighting climate change.
ADB will provide $300 million to reform Uzbekistan’s energy sector, including creating a more effective governance structure, improving legislation, and attracting private investment.
To develop Uzbekistan’s financial market, ADB will provide $100 million to implement regulatory and institutional reforms aimed at improving market conditions to optimize financial transactions and services, and to increase supply and demand side measures to grow capital markets.
Uzbekistan joined ADB in 1995, and since then, the bank has provided $12.5 billion in loans, grants, and technical assistance to the country.
Rapeseed oil exports in July-June 2023-2024 marketing year (MY) reached a record high of more than 420,000 tons, Ukroliaprom association said.
“Ukrainian rapeseed oil is confidently entering the markets of China, EU, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries of the world. Positive dynamics is also observed for rapeseed meal,” the industry association said.
According to Ukroliaprom, for the first time in all years in Ukraine processed 1.0 million tons of rapeseed, which amounted to 22.3% of the harvest in 2023, and this despite the fact that rapeseed is considered mainly export-oriented raw materials.
In addition, exports of soybean oil and meal, and their production and processing accordingly, continue to grow, especially in January-June 2024.
“The growth of domestic processing of seeds and soybeans, as well as a significant increase in exports of high value-added products, namely oil and meal, confirms the association’s position on the need to create conditions for maximum processing of oilseeds at domestic facilities. Further development of the oil and fat industry of Ukraine is expected not so much in increasing the processing of sunflower seeds, but in such oilseeds as soybean and rapeseed, which are still considered as export-oriented. In this matter we hope for the support of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Ministry of Economy of Ukraine”, – emphasized the industry association.
Ukroliaprom stated that sunflower oil exports in January-June 2024 doubled compared to the same period in 2022 and 1.3 times in 2023. In the ten months of 2023-2024 MY, sunflower oil exports increased 1.2 times compared to the same period of 2022-2023 MY.
