May 30, 2012

China to give corn more security   

China will uphold corn's safety and will take a foothold on the local production for keeping the crop's supply and demand equilibrium, said Han Changfu, minister of agriculture on Monday (May 28).

According to Han, the rapid development of animal husbandry and corn deep processing industries has raised demand for corn and the crop consumption is likely to grow by the fastest pace among grain crops over the following years.

Han predicted that China's corn consumption would amount to 220 million tonnes by the end of 2015 and projected that supply shortfall might occur over the next five years.

Currently, the international corn trading volume is about 90 million tonnes, just 55% of China's annual corn consumption. Meanwhile, the country mainly imports corn from the US, Brazil, and Argentina. Once these exporting countries had big natural disasters or adjust trade policies, China would face great risk in corn importing, noted Han.

China's corn imports have maintained robust rise momentum in the past two years. The country imported a total of 1.76 million tonnes of corn in the four months of this year, far higher 7,215 tonnes in the same period of last year.