Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region The Muslim month of Ramadan is expected to end around 19 March with the beginning of the Eid-al-Fitr holiday — the Eid holiday lasts up to five days depending on the country. Businesses, banks, and government offices will be closed during Eid. Egypt has announced public holidays for private and public sector employees from March 19 to 23. Iran has seen grain shipments from Russia on the Caspian Sea begin again after a halt due to the U.S./Israel bombing. Most vessels used are in the 3,000- to 6,000-MT range. Kazakhstan has stopped Caspian Sea barley shipments to Iran due to the war situation. Iran is reported to have cancelled South American soymeal purchases due to the...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.