According to Australia's largest grain trader and exporter ABB Grain Ltd, Ukraine is a serious competitor to Australia as an exporter of barley, agrimarket.info reported.

They think Ukraine has all the chance to press Australia out of quite a lucrative market of Middle East.

According to forecasts of Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resources and Economy (ABARE), Australia's barley crop in 2002/03 marketing year will constitute 3.3 million tonnes against 8.4 million tonnes the year before and export will be 1.7 million tonnes versus 5 million tonnes last season. Meanwhile, Ukraine has already exported since the start of the season 1 million tonnes of barley in Saudi Arabia alone. Total barley crop in Ukraine in 2002/03 MY is expected at about 10.5 million tonnes.

04 March, 2003