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