CHINA is concerned about a rise in corn stocks to a record level and has not yet made a decision on its domestic price, Lu Jingbo, vice administrator of the country’s State Administration of Grain, said Tuesday.

    A sharp rise in imports of other coarse grains, such as barley and sorghum, was driven by a gap between internal and external prices rather than a lack of supply in China, he told the International Grains Council’s annual conference.

    “We are undertaking research but have not made our final decision yet with regard to the corn price,” Lu said.

    Lu did not disclose the current level of corn stocks in China but last week the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) raised its forecast for China’s stocks at the end of the 2015/16 season to 102 million tons, up 4 million from the prior month’s forecast.

    “If you have a mountain of 102 million tons of maize (corn) why on earth would you be importing sorghum and barley?

    There is an issue in China with regard to supporting the farmers,” the FAO’s senior economist, Abdolreza Abbassian, told the IGC conference Tuesday.

    Abbassian said corn was an important crop for food security in China and domestic prices were high to encourage production.

    “For how long this policy will be sustained and continued is a question that China’s policymakers will be concerned with,” Abbassian said.

    The IGC has forecast that China’s barley imports will climb to 7.5 million tons in the 2014/15 season (July/June), up from 4.3 million in the prior season.

    China has become the world’s second largest barley importer, behind Saudi Arabia.

    Sorghum imports are also expected to rise sharply in 2014/15 to 8.5 million tons from the prior season’s 3.4 million, according to IGC data.

    China is the world’s top importer of sorghum.

    Lu also said China’s wheat production should increase slightly this year, adding that no forecast had yet been published.(SD-Agencies)