April 28, 2008

South Africa says no restrictions on corn exports

South Africa will not block the export of corn to curb inflation in the country, since doing so may discourage farmers to boost output, the Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana said.

Xingwana stressed that banning corn exports would not help South Africa in the long term.

South Africa is the fifth largest exporter of corn in the world.

Takaki Shigemoto, an analyst at Tokyo-based commodity broker Okachi & Co., said the most effective way to curb food inflation is to boost production.

South Africa will export more than one million tonnes of corn this year. The agriculture minister added that the country will ship to old export destinations if there is grain surplus.

This year, South Africa is projected to yield 11 million tonnes of corn, the Pretoria-based Crop Estimates Committee said on April 24. The volume is above last month's forecast of 10.76 million tonnes, and last year's harvest of 7.13 million tonnes.