Porto Alegre, June 28, 2021 – Despite the sharp growth in production, ending and beginning stocks continue to fall sharply in almost the same proportion as the supply growth. The latest USDA biannual report brought important fundamental updates on Thai supply, stocks, and exports. In general, USDA indicates that productivity in cane fields, together with the strong growth in area in a context of favorable climate for crop development, tends to increase the country’s production by 3 mln tons, or 40%, between the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons.
Similarly to what happens with other Asian countries, such as India and China, demand must also grow significantly, by 20 thousand tons, due to rising consumption of processed food and direct consumption of the commodity. The favorable climate mentioned by USDA refers to the monsoon rains that, in the 2021/22 season, tend to be above the historical average for the region.
As global demand is growing, Thailand also tends to have a strong increase in its exports, by 3.14 mln tons, or 43%, to the record of 10.44 mln tons in the next international season (2021/22), against 7.3 mln tons in the previous season. The detail is that with both exports and domestic demand on the rise, the result must be a decline in stocks.
The beginning stocks of the 2021/22 crop are expected to fall by 2.21 mln tons, or 29%, from 7.59 to 5.38 mln tons between the 2020/21 and 2021/22 crops. As production must rise by 3.03 mln tons, and exports by 3.14 mln tons, in a scenario of domestic demand growth by 20 thousand tons, ending stocks must have a strong discount at the end of the season.
In this context, ending stocks are falling by 43%, or 2.34 mln tons, from 5.38 to 3.04 mln tons. However, as ending stocks dropped by 2.34 mln tons and domestic demand only rose by 20,000 tons, we have a 95% decline in Thailand’s stock/consumption ratio, which must change from 217% to 121% between the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons.
In this case, it is always necessary to keep in mind that the production pattern in Thailand is aimed at exports, which tend to find a new short-term record of 10.44 mln tons in the 2021/22 crop, second only to the 2017/18 crop, when 10.90 mln tons were shipped from the production of 14.71 mln tons.
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