Cereal export prices, particularly of wheat, maize and rice, have increased significantly in late 2007 as compared to the year before. This, combined with increases in oil prices and freight rates, has sharply driven up the cost of imports for food importing countries, putting a heavy financial burden on many low income food deficit countries. Simple calculations of this price change are presented in the tables and figure below.
Table 1: Indicative import parity prices at Durbin-Randfontein in South Africa
|
|
Nov.2006 |
Nov. 2007 |
% Change |
|
Maize |
228 |
302 |
32% |
|
Wheat |
266 |
516 |
94% |
|
Rice |
421 |
489 |
16% |
|
Average |
305 |
436 |
43% |
Sources: Maize (USA no3) and Wheat (US HRW No2) -SAGIS -Indicative Import parity price at Durbin-Randfontein from http://www.sagis.org.za/
Rice (Thailand white rice) fob Bangkok -FAO/GIEWS plus 38% (average import cost of wheat and maize)
Table 2: Southern Africa: 2007/08 net commercial import requirement of major cereals ('000 tonnes) and import bills (in Mill. US$) at Nov. 2007 indicative import parity prices a/
|
|
|
Maize |
Wheat |
Rice |
Total net import requirements |
Total import bill 1/ |
|
1 |
Angola |
102 |
425 |
230 |
757 |
363 |
|
2 |
Botswana |
155 |
96 |
36 |
287 |
114 |
|
3 |
Lesotho |
142 |
65 |
11 |
218 |
82 |
|
4 |
Madagascar |
0 |
99 |
150 |
249 |
124 |
|
5 |
Malawi |
-510 |
60 |
1 |
-449 |
-123 |
|
6 |
Mauritius |
86 |
162 |
70 |
318 |
144 |
|
7 |
Mozambique |
-105 |
410 |
340 |
645 |
346 |
|
8 |
Namibia |
67 |
60 |
0 |
127 |
51 |
|
9 |
South Africa |
0 |
1120 |
737 |
1857 |
938 |
|
10 |
Swaziland |
80 |
41 |
13 |
134 |
52 |
|
11 |
Zambia |
-244 |
30 |
19 |
-195 |
-49 |
|
12 |
Zimbabwe |
508 |
125 |
22 |
655 |
229 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Total incl. South Africa |
280 |
2693 |
1629 |
4602 |
2271 |
| |
Total excl. South Africa |
280 |
1573 |
892 |
2745 |
1333 |
a/ Excluding food aid requirements; Source: FAO/GIEWS
1/ At Nov. 2007 indicative import parity prices given in Table 1.
Figure 1: Southern Africa: 2007/08 cereal (maize, wheat and rice) import bills and changes due to increase in import parity prices of November 2007 versus that of November 2006 (assuming import parity prices in the region similar to that of South Africa)
|
