THE Philippines and South Korea were the biggest export markets for bulk Australian wheat, taking 235,550 tonnes and 143,640t respectively, according to the latest shipment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

A 2017 AEGIC workshop in Manila promoted the use of Australian wheat in baking. Photo: AEGIC

In third and fourth place for March bulk wheat sales were Yemen on 111,375t and Indonesia on 95,020t.

Indonesia has been Australia’s largest bulk market, but competition from the drought-hit eastern Australian market on the type of wheat it prefers has jacked up its free-on-board price at Western Australian ports.

This is believed to have shifted some Indonesian demand to Black Sea origins.

In containerised markets, Myanmar and Malaysia were the two biggest markets for Australian wheat in March, taking 20,944t and 17,322t respectively, with Thailand on 11,236t and Vietnam on 10,829t taking third and fourth place.

Australia’s combined bulk and containerised wheat exports for March totalled 953,716t, up 14 per cent from 833,600t in February.

According to Lachstock Consulting’s monthly export comparisons, Australia’s total wheat exports in March were down 37 per cent on the March 2018 figure, with a 25pc increase in shipments from Western Australian not enough to offset huge drops in tonnages shipped from other states.

In March 2018, Indonesia was Australia’s biggest bulk wheat customer, followed by The Philippines and China, while the top three destinations for containerised sales were Vietnam, China and Myanmar.

Table 1: ABS bulk wheat exports for October 2018 to March 2019.

Table 2: ABS containerised wheat exports for October 2018 to March 2019.