September 21, 2009
China may consider buying more corn for state reserve
Beijing may still consider stockpiling corn in northeastern areas to prop up prices against negative effects from international financial crisis, an industry executive said Thursday (September 17).
Yue Guojun, assistant president of China National Cereals, Oils & Foodstuffs Corporation, the country's largest oil and food producer said corn processing enterprises should participate in the corn reserve plan to cut down their distribution cost and in the meantime relieve the government's stock pressure.
Yue pointed out that the international financial crisis had exerted severe impact on the domestic corn processing firms, but such impact is now fading away.
To stabilise the corn market, China had purchased 40 million tonnes of corn for state reserve last year, accounting for about 24 percent of that year's total output.
The government started to sell corn from its reserves on July 22 via auction and the sales have been running smoothly along with recovering feedstock consumption.
