The UAE (United Arab Emirates) decision, reported on June 15, to suspend the re-export of wheat and flour from grain originating in India is basically an assurance that whatever it imports will be used only for domestic consumption.
This will allow India to give an exception to its wheat export ban and ship out some quantities to the Gulf federation. On May 14, India banned exports of all wheat, except the outstanding contracts backed by already-issued letters of credit and to the countries on case-to-case food security considerations.
India exported 4.71 lakh tonnes of wheat worth $136.53 million to the UAE in 2024-22. This constituted about 6.5% of its total 72.35 lakh tonnes shipments of the cereal worth $2,120.27 million last fiscal.
The quantities exported may not be big for India and aren’t small for UAE.
More than 50% of UAE’s wheat imports are from Russia, Ukraine, Canada, and Australia. From 2020-21, India also emerged as a major supplier with exports of 1.88 lt to the Gulf federation. Exports increased further in 2024-22, before the export ban decision that came on top of the Russia-Ukraine war.
The trade sources pointed out that the global wheat supply situation should ease somewhat from July with the harvesting and market arrivals of Russian and Ukrainian wheat.
