There are a few good tenders out this week which should see some active offers out of the Black Sea. Turkey is looking for 550kt of milling wheat for Nov / Dec, Tunisia is looking for 50kt of wheat and 50kt of barley, Syria is in for 150kt of wheat and the regular Asian business.

Late last week Ethiopia picked up 80kt of wheat from Dubai grain trader Promising International Trading Co. The wheat is part of the safety net program supported by the World Bank. The latest purchase is part of the 680kt parcel Ethiopia is expected to require to firm up domestic supplies for 2020-21.

China has rejected two more shipments of Australian malt barley and placed the supplier, Emerald Grain, on the banned suppliers list. The Chinese “inspection” identified a weed seed problem and the vessels were rejected. In September CBH was notified that several malt barley shipments that had been unloaded did not meet phytosanitary requirements and CBH was placed on the banned importer list. The banning of foreign owned Emerald Grain maybe simply showing CBH that bans are not just being aimed at Australian firms but instead at Australian grain. The politics of the debacle continue to point to China changing importers to ensure they meet trade deal volume agreed to in the phase one trade deal with the USA. In May this year the US and China agreed to their own phytosanitary requirements. China is yet to see a large shipment of US barley with Canada, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan accounting for almost 100% of US barley exports.