São Paulo – Brazilian soy sales to the Arab market grew in the first two months of the year and generated revenues of US$ 27 million for the country. In the same period last year, they were not even US$ 2,000. "Exports to the Arabs are a process that is related to the world economic and geopolitical moment. Brazil is growing more and more important in exports, opening further markets, among them the Arab ones,” said the commodities analyst at Cerealpar, Steve Cachia.
In terms of volume, Brazil’s soy sales to the Arab world reached 62,600 tonnes in January and February this year, against around one tonne in the same period in 2011. Cachia was in Dubai, in February, for a talk at the World Grain congress, and stated that the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), are greatly concerned with the origin of their raw material supply. "They know they are going to grow,” said the analyst, recalling that Asia will also have greater demand.
Brazil exported US$ 172 million in soy to the Arab world last year, but there is doubt as to the country’s capacity to supply the foreign market this year, as the crop is forecasted to drop. “We may lose this growth (in Asia and Mena), but if we have a full crop next year, we may return to selling,” said Cachia. Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná, states that produce soy, faced a drought between late last year and early this year, and there was an impact on the crop.
With this, the National Food Supply Company (Conab) forecasts a crop of 68.75 million tonnes of soy in 2011/2012, with an 8.7% reduction over the previous crop. It is worth recalling, however, that the previous Brazilian crop was record, with 75.3 million tonnes. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also announced, last week, a 5% reduction in the Brazilian February crop forecast. The USDA forecasts 68.5 million tonnes of soy in Brazil in the 2011/2012 season.
In the last crop, Brazil shipped abroad 32.5 million tonnes of soy. This crop, the Conab forecasts 31.8 million tonnes of exports. The USDA, however, estimates that foreign sales should total 36.9 million tonnes of Brazilian soy, placing the country sales above those of the United States for the first time, and ranking the country as the world’s main exporter. The Department forecasts that US foreign sales of the grain should total 34.7 million tonnes.
*Translated by Mark Ament
