Flour Production and Wheat Consumption in July in China

By CnAgri2012-08-17 14:01:18 Print

Flour production by medium and large mills registered 9.99 million MT in July, 9.5% less than the month before and 1.05% less than the same period of last year. Flour production totaled 68.688 million MT in January ~ July, an increase of 11.96% on the year-on-year basis. The promulgated figures showed a flour production increase of 8.4% in July and 18.5% in January ~ July, both on the year-on-year basis.

BOABC estimates that flour production by medium and large mills was about 5.743 million MT in July and 39.489 million MT in January ~ July, deducting repetitive statistics, and the wheat consumption resulted was about 7.761 million MT in July and 53.364 million MT in January ~ July.

Small mills ran at 13.7% of their capacity in July and medium and large mills at 40.1%.

Wheat consumption for various uses added up to 8.601 million MT in July. Wheat inventory was 139 million MT at the end of July, suggesting a stock index of 16.2, higher than the 13.8 recorded in the same period of last year.

Wheat procurement in major production regions totaled 45.381 million MT by July, of which 32.469 million MT were procured by state-run companies. Wheat inventory in July included 64.17 million MT state-run companies’ stock, 11.64 million MT flourmills’ stock and 57.57 million MT on-farm stock. Farmers sold 31.52% of their wheat by July, more than the same period of last year.

In the 2012/2013 crop year, winter wheat acreage and production are estimated to be 22.694 million hectares and 109.8 million MT and spring wheat acreage and production 1.708 million hectares and 6.607 million MT. Considering wheat diseases and increased consumption by feed mills, year-end wheat inventory and safety index are predicted to drop to 45.182 million MT and 36.3% respectively.

Wheat price was RMB2,122/MT in July and RMB2,135/MT in May ~ July, up 3.5% and 2.89% respectively on the year-on-year basis, attributable to inflation. Wheat price is predicted to rise 8% in 2012/2013 over the previous year to a level of RMB2,260/MT.

From "China Grains Market Weekly Report"