China's grain supply gap reached 37.5 million tons this year

Lead: Beijing, July 17 (Reuters) - China's grain output is likely to reach 455 million tons in 2004, but the gap between supply and demand is still 37.5 million tons, Chinese food industry officials said Saturday Zhu Changguo, deputy director of the State Food Administration, said at a grain and oil conference that this year China still has enough stocks to meet the demand of 493 million tons this year, but the wheat import will reach 6 million tons in 2004, higher than 424176 tons in 2003 China's summer grain output reached 101.5 million tons, up 4.8 percentage points from the previous year, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday However, no specific details were provided Since March, China has introduced policies to encourage farmers to increase the amount of grain sown, as the price of grain in China has risen sharply since the end of last year China's grain stockpiles have shrunk and the government has begun to worry about food security as grain production has been cut year after year, domestic consumption has increased and exports have been huge In the first half of this year, domestic grain stocks were down by 19.7 million tons from the previous year, government officials said Zhu said the central and local grain reserves are still sufficient even if the grain stocks are reduced by another 20 million tons in the second half of the year Chinese winter wheat production reached 87 million tons, compared with 83 million tons previously expected by the market and 82 million tons last year, government officials said In 2004, China's spring wheat production is expected to be 4 to 5 million tons In contrast, domestic wheat consumption is expected to be 105 million tons Of the imported wheat, 2 million tons will flow to the market, and the rest will supplement the government's grain reserves According to industry insiders, China has ordered 7 million tons of wheat from the United States, Australia and Canada, with the shipment scheduled for this year and next year In 2003, China's wheat production reached its lowest level since 1989, far below the record of 123 million tons in 1997 According to Han Jun of the research and development center of the State Council, China's current grain inventory is expected to be 165 million tons, down from 270 million tons in 1998 At the meeting, Zhu predicted that the yield of Indica Rice in China would recover to 180 million tons in 2004, while in 2003, the yield of indica rice decreased to 167 million tons, while the yield of early rice was 33 million tons China's rice supply gap is 10 million tons, but government stocks can meet demand So this year's imports are limited Earlier this year, rising rice prices in China prompted the government to order rice from Thailand and Vietnam Referring to corn, Zhu said that the output in 2004 would rise to 118 million tons, up from 114 million tons last year, on the premise that the drought in the Northeast would not reduce the per unit yield China's corn production and demand will be roughly balanced this year, but exports will be limited, but he did not provide more details Industry insiders said that the government is about to release the second half of the corn export plan, the number may reach 7 million tons, while the first half of the export plan is only 1.4 million tons.