RI wheat policy may gurt Aussie

RI wheat policy may gurt Aussie

CANBERRA: Australia's AWB Ltd. is worried its wheat export
trade to Indonesia could suffer collateral damage as a result of
others dumping flour there, Matthew Foran, AWB's government
relations manager said Friday.

Wheat sales haven't been affected yet, he said, but when
current forward contacts expire, sales to major Indonesian miller
PT Bogasari Flour Mills could fall, one of the world's biggest
wheat buyers and a major AWB customer, he said.

AWB, which doesn't export flour to Indonesia, is "caught in
the middle" of a dispute in which Indonesia's antidumping
authority, or KADI, has found dumping of flour occurring "from a
variety of sources, not just from Australia, and that dumping is
causing material injury to the domestic industry," he said.

KADI has recommended to its minister that a variety of
antidumping duties of between 5 percent and 30 percent be applied
to provide some relief to the domestic industry, he said.

The Indonesian government hasn't yet decided whether it will
impose the antidumping duties, he said.

Foran said Bogasari purchased about 1.8 million metric tons of
wheat a year from Australia, or about 10 percent of its expected
total exports this marketing year ending Sept. 30.

Bogasari mostly buys Australian wheat. --Dow Jones