INDIA GRANTS DUTY CONCESSIONS FOR CORN, AND VEGETABLE OIL IMPORTS
India on Wednesday allowed limited imports of corn, crude sunflower oil, refined rapeseed oil, and milk powder under the tariff-rate quota (TRQ), where importers pay nil or lower duty, as New Delhi tries to bring down food inflation. India has allowed imports of 150,000 metric tons of sunflower oil or safflower oil, 500,000 tons of corn, 10,000 tons of milk powder and 150,000 tons of refined rapeseed oil, the government said.
(Link: Reuters)
UKRAINE’S GRAIN SECTOR REMARKABLY RESILIENT
With the United Nations and Turkey brokering a deal between the warring nations, the blockade was lifted in July 2022, and for the next 12 months grain ships departed the Black Sea ports at a steady pace and grain export figures surged higher. But in July 2023, Russia reinstated the blockade and ramped up its drone and missile strikes of Ukraine’s grain storage and handling infrastructure, including targeting terminals on the Danube River, where more grain exports had been redirected to counter Russia’s efforts to shut down Black Sea shipments.
The country also shrewdly altered its sea route. Under the grain deal, cargo ships traveled to and from Ukrainian ports along a 357-mile corridor through the middle of the Black Sea to the Bosphorus Strait. After that deal ended, Ukraine last fall established a new temporary export corridor, which hugs the western coastline in waters too shallow for Russian submarines to operate. Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Ukraine exported more than 60 million tonnes of grain per year, accounting for 10% of the global market. It is forecast to ship 56 million tonnes of grain in the 2024-25 marketing year, in the Ukraine Ministry of Agriculture’s latest projection. Those are extraordinary numbers, all things considered.
(Link: WorldGrain)
