The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released its April World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, which provides updated forecasts for wheat and corn production, consumption, trade, and stocks for the 2024/25 marketing year.
Wheat: global trends
– Production: downwardly revised by 0.3 mln tons to 796.9 mln tons, mainly due to lower production in Saudi Arabia and the EU.
– Consumption: decreased by 1.4 mln tons to 805.2 mln tons, due to reduced food, seed and industrial use in India and China.
– Trade: exports forecast reduced by 1.3 million tons to 206.8 million tons. Exports are expected to decline for Russia (-1.0 million tons to 44.0 million tons), Australia (-0.5 million tons to 25.5 million tons), and the EU (-0.5 million tons to 26.5 million tons), partially offset by increased exports from Canada (+0.5 million tons to 26.5 million tons) and Ukraine (+0.5 million tons to 16.0 million tons).
– Inventories: global ending stocks increased by 0.6 million tons to 260.7 million tons, down 3% year-on-year and the lowest level since 2015/16 MY.
Following the historic decision taken at the Samarkand Summit to establish a strategic partnership between Central Asia and the European Union, the region is already beginning to see the tangible economic results of this cooperation.
Under the EU’s Global Gateway program, an investment package worth €12 billionwas presented, covering four key sectors:
– transportation (€3 billion)
– critical minerals (€2.5 billion)
– hydropower and climate initiatives (€6.4 billion),
– satellite Internet (€100 million).
In addition, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is developing a portfolio of projects worth about €7-8 billion to support transport, critical minerals, and renewable energy development, to be implemented by 2027.
In Spain, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), annual harmonized inflation in March 2025 fell to 2.2% from 2.9% in February, the lowest rate in the last five months and below the forecast of 2.6%. The decline in inflation was driven by a drop in electricity prices due to increased hydropower production following heavy rainfall, as well as lower prices for fuel and motor oil.
Core inflation, which excludes fresh food and energy prices, also fell to 2.0% year-on-year, reaching its lowest level since November 2021.
Euronews international news channel has announced on its official LinkedIn page the opening of a new office in Tashkent.
According to the published recruitment information, the new office will start operating on May 1, 2025.
In March of this year, Naftogaz Group paid UAH 11.7 billion to the state budget, which is UAH 3.4 billion, or 41%, more than in the same period in 2024, the company said on Wednesday.
“Naftogaz enterprises continue to increase the amount of taxes paid. In March 2025, they paid UAH 11.7 billion, which is 7.3% of the total tax revenues to the state budget of Ukraine for this month,” the group said.
In particular, the group paid UAH 11.1 billion to the state budget, and another UAH 575 million was transferred to local budgets.
“Since the beginning of the year, the amount of taxes paid has already exceeded UAH 23.2 billion. Each contribution is an important component of strengthening our economic stability,” Naftogaz CEO Roman Chumak said as quoted in the report.
As reported, in February 2025, Naftogaz Group paid UAH 5.8 billion in taxes, which is 9.4% more than in the same period in 2024.
According to the results of 2024, Naftogaz Group companies paid UAH 88.6 billion in taxes to the general budget, including UAH 81.8 billion to the state budget and UAH 6.8 billion to local budgets.
In addition, in 2024, NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine paid UAH 15.7 billion in dividends to the state.
The Index of Economic Expectations of Investors and Analysts in Germany for the next six months, calculated by the ZEW Research Institute, fell to the lowest since July 2023 of minus 14 points in April from the highest since February 2022 of 51.6 points a month earlier. This is the most significant drop since March 2022. Analysts on average expected it to decline to 9.5 points in April, according to Trading Economics.
“Global uncertainty has increased dramatically, not only because of the possible effects of the [US] mirror duties on world trade, but also because of the dynamic nature of their changes,” said ZEW President Achim Wambach. ”This is especially affecting export-intensive industries such as the automotive and chemical industries, as well as the production of metals, machinery and steel, which have recently seen significant improvements.
Meanwhile, the indicator of attitudes toward the current situation in Germany increased to minus 81.2 points this month from minus 87.6 points in March.
In the eurozone, the index of economic expectations in April fell to the lowest since December 2022, minus 18.5 points from 39.8 points a month earlier. The experts’ forecast for this indicator was 14.2 points.
The indicator for assessing the current economic situation in the currency bloc decreased by 5.7 percentage points to minus 50.9 points.
Source: http://relocation.com.ua/index-ekonomichnyh-ochikuvan-investoriv/
