Friday, 28 August 2015 17:32
BEIJING: China found buyers for less than 1 percent of the nearly 5.4 million tonnes of state corn on offer this week, the lowest so far in the year, according to results of bids published by the country’s online grains trading platform showed on Friday.
The government sold 40,855 tonnes of corn at an average price of 2,273 yuan ($ 355.91) per tonne, down from 2,315 yuan per tonne last week. There were no bidders for about 75,000 tonnes of US corn offered at the auction this week, the National Grain and Oil Trade Centre data showed.
The government has sold a total of 3.82 million tonnes of corn so far this year, just 4.3 percent of the total volumes offered, meaning it would be holding huge inventories ahead of harvesting late in the year.
Sluggish sales of state corn stocks could prompt Beijing to stockpile less new harvest due in September and cut state support prices of corn for 2015/16, analysts said.
Weekly state corn sales have been low since April as feed mills turned to cheaper imported corn and substitutes such as sorghum, distillers’ grain, barley and cassava, which imports hit record high level in July.
