Ukraine will to continue export wheat despite reaching the 5.5 million metric tons exports limit set by the government for the current marketing year, Deputy Agriculture Minister Ivan Bisyuk said in Kiev Wednesday as quoted by the agriculture ministry's press service.

"We have checked our wheat balance and we have decided that we can continue wheat exports," Mr. Bisyuk said. "We will not engage in non-tariff regulation. If there's need to do that, we'll warn the market in advance, but for now there is no need to impose any curbs on the export of wheat," he said.

The Ukraine Grain Association said earlier that Ukraine's grain exporters had received a verbal undertaking from the agriculture ministry that 5.5 million tons of wheat could be exported from July 1 until Dec. 1 in the current marketing year, after which the association expected a ban on wheat exports to be imposed officially due to drought.

The agriculture ministry has said it expects the grain harvest this year to fall to between 45.5 million tons and 46.5 million tons in bunker weight from 56.7 million tons in 2011 because of drought and grain exports in the 2012-13 marketing year at about 20 million tons, including 5.5 million tons of wheat. In the previous marketing year Ukraine exported 21.794 million tons of grain.

Write to Grigori Gerenstein at realtimedesklondon@dowjones.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 28, 2012 05:26 ET (10:26 GMT)