China, the world's second-largest corn consumer, imported 2.6 million tonnes of the grain in 2014, down 20.4 percent from a year before after Beijing's rejection of US shipments slashed imports from the world's top exporter, customs data showed on Friday. But corn shipments from Ukraine rose 785 percent from 2013 to nearly 1 million tonnes and it became the second-largest exporter after the United States, according to the General Administration of Customs.
In December China imported 607,201 tonnes of corn, down 26 percent on the year, and more than half came from Ukraine. Suppliers there are struggling to honour corn contracts signed in October. Last month Beijing approved imports of seed maker Syngenta's genetically modified Viptera corn, also known as MIR 162, but only after it had rejected more than 1.2 million tonnes of that strain from the United States.
Industry analysts do not expect corn imports to rise this year, initially at least, as Beijing has delayed issuing 2015 import quotas and domestic stocks are at a record high level. "Even with the approval of MIR 162, we do not expect to see any significant increase of corn imports this year. Mills are still waiting for import quotas," said Zhang Yan, an analyst with Shanghai JC Intelligence Co Ltd.
Some analysts have said grain imports could plummet this year, with the government trying to sell off as much of its bulging state grain reserves as possible before it grants mills permission to buy overseas. Imports of distillers' dried grains (DDGs), a by-product of corn, fell 95 percent in December to 26,210 tonnes. Imports in the second half of the year were hurt due to the GMO issue.
DDG imports for the whole of 2014 rose 35.3 percent to 5.4 million tonnes, customs data showed. DDGs are used as a substitute for corn and meal. China, the world's top buyer of DDGs, gets almost all of its imports from the United States, the world's biggest exporter.
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