Ukraine's weekly grain exports at 1m mt, YTD at 19m mt, down 19%

Ukraine's weekly volumes of grain declared for export amounted to 1 million mt in the week ending January 5, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine reported, citing operational data from the State Customs Service.

Total grain exports for the marketing year that began on July 1 were listed at 18.99 million mt, including 607,000 mt in January.

That puts the marketing year figure 19% below last year's shipped volume of 22.6 million mt and the January figure at 12% below January last year.

The volume of corn declared for export reached 610,000 mt in the reporting week from December 29 to January 5, while the total corn volume exported since July 1 amounted to 9.96 million mt, 24% lower year on year.

In particular, 389,000 mt of Ukrainian corn were exported in January, which is 27% less than the same period of the previous year.

Spain was the lead destination with 118,413 mt imported in the first week of January, closely followed by China with 100,151 mt, Italy with 64,791 mt, and Egypt with 61,478 mt.

As for wheat, Ukrainian exporters registered 412,000 mt to go abroad during the reporting week, which pushed the total volume of wheat exported since July 1 up to 7.78 million mt, around 9% down year on year.

In particular, 185,000 mt were exported in January compared with 130,000 mt for the same period last year.

Spain and Pakistan were the main importers of Ukrainian wheat during the first week of January with 93,423 mt and 68,185 mt, respectively, taking the lion's share of the volume.

Finally, 33,000 mt of barley was declared for export during the reporting week of January 5, pushing the total since the beginning of the new marketing year to 1.1 million mt or 33% below in annual terms.

The data issued by the Ukrainian customs authorities shows the goods that have been declared for export, but the figures do not always correspond to the volumes that physically left the country during the period.