Turkey mulls corn import duty cut to fight food inflation: sources

Turkey is contemplating cutting corn import duties as the country bids to tackle food price inflation, market sources told Agricensus Wednesday.

“Turkey has been battling food inflation for a long time, and it is discomforting the government,” one market source said.

“The relief on corn import duties has been on the agenda for a long time, with some big traders taking a position in this direction for March,” the source said.

“It’s a rumour,” a second trading source said.

“The current supply and demand for corn might not be sufficient, but in general such rumours became a reality after a while – we may see such a thing after April,” the second source said.

Corn import tariffs kick in at $200/mt and are charged at 25%.

Currently, the price of corn is listed at 873 Turkish lira, or $219/mt on the TMO’s website.

That compares with 759 Turkish lira at the same time last year.

In practice, any cargo imported into Turkey at prices below the $200/mt threshold are treated the same way, effectively making the basic price of importing corn $250/mt, the second source said.

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, Turkey’s inflation rate was at 10.35% in January, the lowest inflation rate in six months.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation stood at 8.76%, after hitting 13.79% in December.

Turkey produced 6.4 million mt of corn in 2016, according to the Turkish Grain Board (TMO), falling to 5.9 million mt in 2017 on a greatly reduced planted area.

At the same time, TMO purchased just under 205,000 mt of corn via international tender, down from 1.7 million mt in the previous year.

For the 2017/18 marketing year, the USDA is forecasting a Turkish crop of 5.5 million mt.

Turkey's ministry of agriculture did not respond to a request for comment.