Enlarge image
Wheat processing in Ahmedabad, India
Photo: AMIT DAVE / REUTERS
After India's wheat export ban, the country's government has now allowed some exports of the grain.
Wheat deliveries that were handed over to customs up to and including last Friday may be exported, the Ministry of Commerce in New Delhi said.
Specifically, the authority named grain intended for Egypt in the port of Kandla on the west coast in the state of Gujarat.
According to the AFP news agency, hundreds of thousands of tons of wheat were stranded there on Tuesday as a result of the export ban: according to the port operator, around 4,000 trucks were now jammed around the port.
According to this, those truckloads should be brought on board ships that had arrived there before the export ban was announced last Friday, but not those that arrived afterwards.
India is the second largest wheat producer in the world, exporting a total of 110 million tons in 2021.
The country is now suffering from a heat wave, and the wheat harvest is likely to be correspondingly poor.
In order to ensure the country's security of supply, India's government imposed a general ban on grain exports on Saturday, but emphasized that exports are still permitted with the government's express approval.
Great hopes rest on India that it will be able to alleviate the supply bottlenecks that arose in the course of the Ukraine war by increasing its wheat exports.
The wheat price in Europe hit record levels on Monday.
dam/dpa-AFX/AFP
