China's 2018 corn consumption expected to hit 224m tons

BEIJING - The projection of China's corn consumption for 2018 has been revised up to 224 million metric tons on forecasts of higher industrial consumption, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

The figure is 1.5 million tons higher than the February projection, but the average wholesales price in domestic market is expected to remain in the range of 1,600 yuan per ton to 1,700 yuan per ton, said the supply-demand analysis on China's farm produce in March.

Issued by the Expert Committee on Market Alert, an advisory body on market information under the ministry, the monthly analysis attributed the price stability to the continuous oversupply in the domestic market as the corn inventory remains high.

With corn reserves to be auctioned soon, market supply will continue to increase and check the upward pressure on prices triggered by higher industrial consumption, according to the report.

Industrial consumption has grown as processing enterprises successively resumed their production after the Lantern Festival, which fell on March 2.

The capacity of corn processing factories being used has been better than expected, and industrial consumption for corn processing is expected to grow, it said.

In February, the committee predicted that China's corn imports for 2018 would be around 1.5 million tons, up by 300,000 tons from a month earlier.