Based on current global processing forecasts (see our article WPTC Crop update as of 1 July 2022), the overall operations of the top ten processing countries (32.47 million metric tonnes (mT)) are expected to account in 2022 for just under 84.5% of the total global quantities forecast (38.44 million mT). This figure marks a substantial increase in the proportional weight of the TOP10 within the worldwide activity of the sector, promoted by an extremely difficult context in terms of profitability and very demanding circumstances in terms of expertise.
This episode comes after the "dip" of 2018 (34.8 million mT) and four years of reasoned growth in global trade, marked in particular by the Covid pandemic and its consequences in terms of the balance between supply and demand, by its effects on price patterns and on the attractiveness of this industrial sector. During this period, the TOP10's contribution to overall operations, at around 83%, was among the lowest of the last thirty years.
Based on the information collected by the WPTC as of July 1, 2022, the processing outlook for the TOP10 in 2022 is 70,000 mT (0.2%) below its final 2021 result, but 508,000 mT (1.6%) above its average performance of the last three seasons (32 million mT). At the same time, the processing forecasts of the other 31 countries monitored by the WPTC are down by 10% compared to last year's result and by nearly 390,000 mT (6%) compared to the average of the previous three seasons (2019-2021), in the context of a carry-over of the quantities recorded during the 2021 season.
The first place among the world's TOP10 processing countries remains occupied by California, whose processing intentions account for just under 28% of total operations expected this year. China should regain the second place in this ranking and account for a little more than 15% of worldwide activity. Next comes Italy, whose processing intentions contribute 14% to the overall target, ahead of Spain (6%), Turkey (5.5%), Brazil (4%), Portugal (4%), Iran (3%), Chile (2.5%) and Tunisia (2%).
Some complementary data
Summary table of the season's results for the TOP10 countries.
Source: WPTC
