The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine keeps the forecast for wheat harvest at 23 million tonnes against 26.2 million tonnes in 2017.

"As of August 1 some 18.481 million tonnes of wheat had been threshed. The average yield is 35.3 centners per hectare. Wheat is harvested from 5.24 million hectares, or 79% of the plan. We keep the wheat yield forecast at 23 million tonnes," First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Maksym Martyniuk wrote on Facebook.

According to him, based on the actual figures and weather conditions in the regions where the harvesting campaign is still in process (mainly in the west of the country), the supply of food wheat of the 2018 harvest will be 11 million tonnes.

"This is the most conservative, pessimistic estimate, realized in the worst case scenario and including all possible negative factors. But even in this case the volume of 11 million tonnes is more than twice as much as the demand of the domestic market for food wheat, which is estimated at 5 million tonnes," the official said.

He said that due to poor harvests in the main grain supplying countries, wheat prices on foreign markets are growing and this increases the marginality of exports from Ukraine.

"I want to officially state that providing the domestic market and stability of prices for the key food products is an absolute priority. A memorandum of understanding in the current marketing year will be signed with the grain exporters in the coming days. This is already a traditional document, but given a number of external and internal factors, we plan now, at the start of the season, to fix the limit of food class wheat exports for the medium term," the expert added.