Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, has shipped 58,000 metric tons of food-grade wheat to Mexico from its western port of Kaliningrad this year, the local agricultural safety watchdog said on Monday, a significant slowdown from 2023 and 2024.
Russia is aiming to diversify its grain exports beyond its traditional Middle East markets, targeting new ones in Latin America, Asia and Africa through its expanding grain terminals in the Baltic Sea.
The Kaliningrad food safety watchdog said it inspected the wheat destined for Mexico between January 1 and November 5, including a cargo of 29,000 tons on November 2.
Three certificates were issued for three separate shipments, it said. "The quarantined cargo has been sent in ship batches."
European grain traders reported that two other Russian wheat shipments totalling 50,000 to 60,000 metric tons were sold for November/December shipment in November.
Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave situated between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea coast, is projected to harvest up to 730,000 tons of wheat in 2025. It ranks as the leader in grain yields among Russian regions.
A market source told Reuters that all cargoes belong to Sodruzhestvo, Russia's leading agricultural exporter and an owner of the Kaliningrad region's grain terminal.
Russia began exporting wheat to Mexico in 2021, increasing volumes from 30,000 tons that year to 947,000 tons in 2023, becoming the third-largest supplier to Mexico after the U.S. and Canada.
According to the latest available data from the Federal Centre for Agricultural Products Safety Evaluation, a unit of the watchdog, Russia exported 549,000 tons of wheat to Mexico between January and September 2024.
(Reuters)