Turkey buys European, Ukrainian wheat to replace Russian origin.

Turkish millers imported at least 500,000 million tonne of high protein wheat from alternative Black Sea and European origins for April shipment. Turkish authorities on March 15 ditched tax exemptions of a 130% import duty on wheat imports from Russia. Since then the Turkish flour industry has found itself in need of diversifying its origins. Turkey needs at least 400,000-450,000 million tonne of monthly imports of wheat. At least 100,000 million tonne of Ukrainian wheat has already been purchased. 50,000 million tonne of Hungarian wheat was booked as well as 350,000 million tonne of Latvian and Lithuanian wheat. Turkish millers preferred the quality from the small Baltic states than Hungarian and Ukrainian origin and is very competitively priced. Latvian and Lithuanian annual exports for the 2016-17 marketing year are estimated at less than 2 MMT.