France's farming agency on Wednesday trimmed its forecast for wheat exports outside the EU this season, cautioning that competition would continue to be tough in key North and West African markets. Traders and analysts have seen scope for France, the European Union's largest wheat producer, to accelerate its overseas sales in the second half of the July-June marketing season as supply tightens in top exporter Russia.

Doubts over the quality of Argentine wheat have also encouraged hopes that French wheat is well placed along with US wheat to profit from a slowdown in Russian shipments.

However, an import tender on Tuesday by Algeria, France's main overseas outlet, showed French and US prices closely matched, according to traders, while offers in an Egyptian tender on Wednesday suggested Russian wheat remained competitive. France has become more reliant on sales to Algeria this season amid intense Russian competition elsewhere. Algeria accounted for about 80 percent of French soft wheat exports outside the EU in the July-November period, customs data showed on Tuesday.

FranceAgriMer lowered its forecast of 2018/19 French soft wheat exports outside the EU to 8.7 million tonnes from 8.8 million last month..

Copyright Reuters, 2019