March 17, 2008

China will struggle to guarantee stable grain output in 2008

China will find it hard to guarantee stable grain output this year due to bad weather, a senior government official said in an interview with state-owned CCTV.

Heavy snowstorms in southern China earlier this year and an ongoing drought in the country's north will greatly impact grain production, said Chen Xiwen, director of the office under the Communist Party's leading panel on rural issues, in the interview published with China's CCTV.

The country is entering a phase of high food prices due to the increasing costs of crop production and labor, Chen added.

However, the government would need to provide more subsidies for agricultural production to alleviate the burden on consumers from rising prices, he said.

China, the world's most populous country, would not be a big grain exporter, but whether it would tighten grain exports would greatly depend on domestic output, he said.

China issued a series of policies earlier this year and late last year to curtail grain exports to curb inflation amid strong local demand.