News
04.11.2009
China to see slightly tight grain supply in 2010
China is hard to reverse its tight supply of grain in 2010 when rice and corn will be short supplied but wheat market can keep balanced, said a State Council official at the Forum for China 2010 Economy Outlook over the weekend.
The country's rice consumption maintains at about 180 million tons per year. However, its annual rice output has stood lower than that of 10 years ago and the world rice trading volume hasn't exceeded 25 million tons in the past 20 years.
Han Jun, director of Rural Research Department under the State Council, pointed out China will continue to ensure steady growth of grain production next year and guard against sharp ups and downs of grain prices.
China has reaped bumper harvest for six years running. By end-March of this year, the state-owned enterprises had held grain stocks of 255.4 million tons, up 50 million tons year on year. However, now enterprises, traders and farmers fail to stockpile much grain and most of grain is in the state depot, Han said.
Meanwhile, Chinese government will give policy support to stabilize prices of key farm products such as cotton, pig, vegetable oils and sugar in 2010, Han added.
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