Foreign power: Although China's summer grain production has increased, the grain price is unlikely to fall sharply

Lead: Beijing, July 23: China's summer grain output in 2004 is expected to be higher than expected, but grain prices are likely to remain stable or even rise for the rest of the year, according to Chinese food industry officials on Friday According to the statistics released by the National Bureau of statistics on July 16, China's summer grain output in 2004 is expected to be 101.5 million tons, an increase of 4.804 million tons, or 4.8% over 2003 According to an official from the research and development center of the State Council, if there is no serious natural disaster in the second half of 2004, the grain output in 2004 is expected to reach 455 million tons China's grain experts said this week that this year's summer grain output will increase and autumn grain is expected to increase, which will help fill the expected 38 million tons of grain supply gap, but will have little impact on grain prices and will not lead to a sharp drop in grain prices According to the Statistics Bureau, the average food price in June 2004 was lower than that in May Experts believe that the recent weakness of grain prices is mainly due to the correction of the soaring market at the end of 2003 It is impossible for grain prices to fall back to the prices when they began to rise last autumn A national development and Reform Commission official said that domestic grain production may still be unable to meet the demand, and China must put more grain stocks to fill the gap He added that the increase in summer grain production to some extent eased the market's concerns about food supply, but was not enough to reverse the overall trend of the food market Jilin grain group (JGG) officials agreed, saying there was very limited space for prices to fall because farmers were reluctant to sell and the distribution of domestic grain production was very uneven. Most of the grain depots in our country exist in the main production areas, and the demand of the sales areas cannot be satisfied in time In addition, transportation bottlenecks also lead to tight food supply Recently, the weakness of grain market is mainly due to its own adjustment, because the original favorable factors have basically been reflected in the current price In the southern consumer areas, higher than average rotation of grain stocks this year could also cause problems in food supply Finally, in order to ensure food supply security, local governments are expected to increase food purchases to replenish inventories The total grain consumption in 2004 is estimated to be about 490 million tons, while the grain output target is 455 million tons Even if China reached the output target of 455 million tons in 2004, there is still a supply gap of millions of tons compared with the estimated consumption of 490 million tons Chinese officials say China has to fill the gap by increasing imports and relying on food stocks