China may import about 7.4 million tonnes corn or more to meet domestic demand in 2011.

Guangzhou, Guangdong -- (SBWire) -- 10/11/2011 --On Sept. 20, 2011, China State Administration of Grain (CSAG) together with related departments released a notice to China Grain Reserves Corporation (Sinograin), a state-owned enterprise which plays a key role in carrying out state initiatives to ensure China's food security and economic growth, aiming to arrange a rotation plan of state corn reserves, about 3.7 million tonnes, and put them all into domestic market to meet the needs by the end of Nov. 2011, according to CCM’s latest issue of Crop Protection China News.

As such great volume of reserved corn will be put into market, China has to add more corn to state storage for the next year. Thus some domestic experts predict that China may import corn of 2.5 million tonnes in 2011, which is mainly from the US, up 59.24% over 2010 and reaching a new record high.

Corn, a kind of grain crop with the largest planting area in China, is annually planted in a total area of around 30 million ha., accounting for more than 30% of the total grain planting area in China. Its planting area and yield in 2010 reaches about 32.5 million ha. and 177 million tonnes, up 4.2% and 5.8% over 2009 respectively. According to the predicted data from China Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), the planting area and yield of corn in China are predicted to reach 32.56 million ha. and 182.5 million tonnes, slightly up and up 3% over 2010 respectively.

Although China's corn planting area and corn yield are gradually increasing in recent years, it still can't meet the needs of the expanding corn market. China consumed over 180 million tonnes of corn in 2010 so it has to import 1.5 million tonnes of corn to meet the needs pushed up by the large consumption in domestic market and slight export volume.

In the last decade, China's largest annual corn import volume was merely 100,000 tonnes and the corn produced by itself can meet the basic need of domestic market. Actually, China was nearly a net exporter of corn with little corn imported before 2010. However, things changed gradually in recent years. Large areas of drought in 2009 and the increase of corn demand have made China largely import corn from the US and other countries.

China has imported more than 1 million tonnes of corn from the US in 2010, exceeds the total import volume of the corn imported from the US in the history. And it has imported 1.25 million tonnes of corn from the US in March 2011. According to US Grains Council, China's total import volume of corn in 2011 is predicted to reach 7.4 million tonnes or more. However, China will choose to import such big volume of corn from the US or Argentina is still not decided.

China will rely more and more on importing agricultural commodities. The planting area in China is limited, but the demand for agricultural commodities has witnessed huge increase in recent years. China's corn demand may reach continuous record high in the next few years and its total import volume of corn till 2014 is predicted to reach 25 million tonnes. It will replace Japan and become the largest corn importer in the world.

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Crop Protection China News, a semimonthly publication issued by CCM International on 15th and 30th(31st) of every month, aims to gain a deep insight into Chinese market, supply the latest market data and strategy support, analyze the newest legislation and policy and grasp the future market trend.

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