China and South-East Asia Australia’s prime wheat buyers

Exports over the past decade have been significantly affected by droughts and global tensions. See which nations have remained our best customers.

Indonesia has regained the mantel as Australia’s top wheat buyer in 2020-21, after two years where it ceded the prime position to the Philippines and China.

Since 2002-03, Indonesia has been Australia’s biggest buyer of wheat, often taking two to three times more than its next biggest customer.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows Indonesia was consistently buying 2.5-5.3 million tonnes of local wheat up to 2018-19, when two years of drought in Australia saw the Philippines become the premier customer, followed by China in 2019-20.

Emerald Grain chief executive David Johnson said drought on the east coast of Australia in 2018-19 and 2019-20 forced up local wheat prices, resulting in the rationing of stocks available for export.

Mr Johnson said Indonesia turned to Black Sea wheat to fill its needs during that period but soon returned to Australia for its prime needs.

“The 2020 harvest was a record crop, so we went back to historical levels (of exports to Indonesia),” he said.

The ABS data shows the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan being solid customers during the past 12 years.

China annually bought between 500,000 tonnes and two million tonnes during much of the decade from 2009-10, but this had whittled down to 172,000 tonnes in 2018-19, with not a single bulk cargo.

It took small bulk cargoes from November, 2019, before buying 364,000 tonnes in March, 2020, just as the coronavirus outbreak decimated global stockmarkets and caused supply chain disruptions.

China became Australia’s biggest wheat buyer in 2019-20, despite placing punitive tariffs on Australian barley in a stoush with the former Morrison Government.

It has since become a big buyer of Australian wheat and has already taken one quarter of all exports in the first five months of the current year.

Mr Johnson said China’s purchasing in the past three years was a function of poor harvests and low stocks.

“I think they had some weather damage in their harvests, so they needed some higher quality wheat,” he said.

Indonesia and China have been tussling for position as Australia’s top wheat customer in the past couple of years. Picture: Zoe Phillips

“In the past 12 months, China has been buying from all origins: France, Ukraine and we hear they’re taking Russian wheat.

“I don’t think it is Covid related. It’s more a function of their internal supply and demand.”

South Africa was No. 10 in the 2020-21 rankings of Australian customers.

Mr Johnson said this was a sign of how competitive Australian wheat had been after two big harvests.

He said African nations had been sourcing their wheat from Russia but the Russian government’s export tax on grain forced customers to look to other suppliers, such as Australia.

Yemen was another consistent buyer of Australian wheat.

Mr Johnson said Yemen wanted white wheat, so it took Australian grain in bulk to bag into 50kg lots for milling in homes using micro mills.