The Russia-Ukraine crisis may give India an opportunity to export more wheat especially to Bangladesh, Egypt and Turkey, and eggs to the Middle East, sources said, even as exporters of engineering goods have put on hold their consignments to Russia amid banking sanctions being imposed on the country.

Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, accounting for more than 18% of international exports while India competes with Ukraine in the Middle East in eggs.

“We do expect some benefit in agricultural exports such as wheat and poultry if India’s stance remains neutral,” said an official.

India’s central pool of wheat at 24.2 million tonne is twice more than the buffer and strategic needs, as per sources.

Bilateral trade with Russia in 2020-21 was $8.1 billion. Indian exports were $2.6 billion while imports from Russia were $5.48 billion. With Ukraine, the bilateral trade was $2.59 billion in FY21.

Sources said that Russia and Ukraine cover more than 70% of Egypt’s imported wheat demand. In the crop year of 2021-22, Turkey was the largest buyer of Russian wheat, purchasing 4.5 million metric tonnes as of December 30, 2021 while Egypt bought 3.2 million metric tonnes.

In 2019, Russia and Ukraine together exported more than a quarter of the world’s wheat.

“The main import from Russia is petroleum. There are enough other substitute sources available to fill in that,” said another official.

While Ukraine exports edible oils, petroleum products and fertilisers, Indian exports cover a number of products, of which pharmaceuticals supplies alone have grown, in recent years, to $154 million.

India’s biggest item of import from Ukraine is animal and vegetable fats and oils. “The current situation will not adversely impact India’s trade position as the share of this commodity out of India’s total imports of this item from across the world stands at only 10%,” said a source.