Bread, cookie makers may double Australian wheat imports.

Bread and cookie makers in India may almost double imports of wheat from Australia and Ukraine as they look for cheaper supplies from overseas.

Flour mills might import as much as 300,000 tonnes in the year ending March 31, compared with 158,000 tonnes last year, said M K Dattaraj, former president of the Roller Flour Millers Federation of India.

Premium quality Australian grain will make up most of the purchase, he said. India, the second largest wheat producer, last week said it would sell 5 million tonnes of wheat in the open market to cool prices, which have gained 10 per cent since the start of the financial year on April 1. Millers in the country's southern states, who rely on supplies from the growing regions in the north, may not benefit from the sale.

Atul Chaturvedi, president at Adani Enterprises Ltd, the nation's largest non-state trader of farm goods, said, "There's a small window of opportunity for imports as the wheat supplied by the government is more expensive than imported wheat in southern India."

Mills in the southern city of Bangalore pay about $318 a tonne for premium quality Australian wheat, compared with Rs 14,200 ($307) for common variety grain from the state-run Food Corpn of India, Dattaraj said.

Black Sea-origin wheat was cheaper at about $245 to $250 at southern Indian ports, Chaturvedi said.

Source : Fnb News