March 5, 2009

China's grain companies purchased 44.527 million tonnes of corn yielded in the country's ten major corn production areas in 2008, according to the State Administration of Grain.

The purchase marked an on-year growth of 19.235 million tonnes. State-owned companies purchased 28.201 million tonnes of corn, increasing by 17.78 million tonnes from the previous year and accounting for 63 percent of the total procurement.

The ten areas include Hebei, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu.