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SE Asia wheat demand likely to see longer-term support

  • Mercados: Agriculture
  • 05/03/24

Sustained lower wheat prices in the global market could support an increase in baseline wheat demand in southeast Asia, as wheat flour takes market share away from rice in the region's food sector.

Lower wheat prices in the region's imports have weighed on the wheat flour market. This, in turn, has resulted in a widening price spread between wheat flour and rice. While rice usually holds a premium to wheat flour, a long-term trend of a wider price spread between the two commodities could result in a paradigm shift further away from rice towards wheat flour.

This could support the region's milling wheat import demand, but also increase baseline demand, boosting the market's required absorption rate of any rises and volatility in global wheat prices.

Currently, the flour milling capacity in Indonesia, the region's largest wheat importer, is about 14.4mn t/yr, the director of domestic company Indofood, Franciscus Welirang, said at an industry event in Jakarta. And flour production could be ramped up without straining existing infrastructure, with flour consumption amounting to 6.8mn t, or 8.75mn t of wheat equivalent in the 2023 calendar year.

Flour export prospects

An increase in wheat flour production, on sustained lower global wheat prices, could boost Indonesian flour exports. This may make it possible for the country's flour producers to aim for the export market, targeting southeast and northeast Asia, including China, market participants said.

Increased flour production could allow southeast Asian millers to compete with Turkish flour millers in the international market, and would enable them to take advantage of lower freight costs for shipments to southeast and northeast Asia relative to their competitors in Turkey.


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