Country News
Australia: Exports of barley from Australia to China have increased by 82 percent over the past five years, and sorghum exports have grown by 2,000 percent. Loren Puette of market intelligence firm China Ag’s says there is concern that this trade has now plateaued. However, James Cook University’s Zhangyue Zhou believes that China’s large corn stocks are not a threat to Australia’s exports because of the quality issues with Chinese product. (ABC Rural)
Botswana: Botswanan officials report that despite having good reserve stocks of sorghum, the country will need to import white maize from Zambia and yellow maize from South Africa. Sorghum is more of a food staple in Botswana than maize, so imports will probably not total more than 5,000- 6,000 MT. (WPI)
Brazil: Shipping agency Williams Brazil says that corn shipments totaled 9.4 MMT, up from 8.3 MMT during the week of September 22. This includes shipments from 13 ports including Santos, Brazil’s largest. (Bloomberg)
China: With surplus production this year alone at 55 MMT, the government will auction off 2.3 MMT of corn next week at a price that will likely be lower than the $314/MT it paid to acquire it. The government will pay 10 percent less for corn starting in November, which is expected to help out processors. Industry analyst Wang Baoquan of yumi.com.cn says processing capacity could grow by 10 percent with corn sweetener taking market share away from sugar. Meanwhile, importers of barley are having to pay about two percent more as a result of the recent yuan devaluation. (Bloomberg; Dow Jones)