China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MOA) raised 2019/20 corn imports to 7 mln tonnes, up 1 mln tonnes from August estimates. Corn prices in China have been raised to 1,900-2,000 CNY/tonne, up 50 CNY/tonne from the previous estimate. As of September 3^rd, 2020 corn sales under national policies total over 65 mln tonnes. The overall corn supply in China will be adequate with the release of policy corn, sales of new corn and arrivals of imported corn.

The MOA in its September report forecast 2020/21 corn production to be 265 mln tonnes, down 1.8 mln tonnes from its August forecast. Typhoons have led to some flattened corn crops and a slight decline in corn yield in northeast China, but the overall production is expected to see a steady rise in 2020/21. The imports estimates were raised to 7 mln tonnes, a rise of 2 mln tonnes from previous month, mainly due to a sharp increase in imports from the United States. And the overall consumption is left unchanged from the previous estimate.