NEW DELHI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Flour millers in southern India have imported up to 50,000 tonnes of wheat from Australia and Ukraine since November, but they have stopped striking new deals in anticipation of a bumper harvest, traders said on Tuesday.
One miller who was involved in the import said high-protein wheat was bought by the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka at a landed cost of about $300 per tonne when the domestic wheat of similar quality was priced at $330 per tonne.
India, the world's second-biggest wheat producer, is expecting a record output of 80-82 million tonnes in the two-month harvest that begins in March, government officials and analysts say, up from 80.6 million tonnes last year.
The country produces only one harvest in a year, following planting in October.
Domestic prices could fall to the landed import cost by April, a mill owner in the southern city of Chennai said.
In November, India struck deals to import wheat for the first time in two years as availability of the high-protein variety was insufficient. [ID:nSP60968]
Traders and millers said the wheat was mainly bought from Australia in containers as shipping rules do not allow bulk imports of the commodity.
They also said mills have exported 35,000 tonnes of wheat flour in 2009 to some southeast Asian countries.
India does not allow exports of the grain but millers can sell up to 650,000 tonnes of wheat products until March.
Source : REUTERS