Flour Production & Wheat Consumption in December of 2012

By CnAgri2013-01-25 10:55:31 Print Flour production by medium and large mills was 12.734 million MT in December, 7.1% more than the month before and 8.68% more than the same period of the previous year. Flour production totaled 125.824 million MT in 2012, an increase of 7.89% on the year-on-year basis. The promulgated figures showed a flour production increase of 17% in December and 14.4% in 2012, both on the year-on-year basis.
 
Medium and large flour mills consumed about 17.208 million MT wheat in December and 170 million MT in 2012.
 
Deducting repetitive statistics, flour production and wheat consumption were about 7.869 million MT and 10.634 million MT respectively in December.
 
Small mills ran at 22.2% of their capacity and medium and large mills at 53.9% in December.
 
Wheat consumption for various uses was estimated to be 11.724 million MT in December. Wheat inventory was 81.987 million MT at the end of December, suggesting a stock index of 7.
 
Wheat inventory consisted of 53.33 million MT state reserve, 15 million MT flour mills’ stock and 19.38 million MT on-farm stock. Farmers sold 83.63% of their wheat by December, parallel to the same period of the previous year.
 
Wheat production and consumption were estimated to be 120.5 million MT and 125 million MT respectively in 2012. Wheat imports recorded 2.274 million MT in May ~ December and may total 2.76 million MT in 2012/2013. With the rise of international wheat price, wheat imports are presumed to slow down in late 2012/2013.
 
Wheat inventory at the end of 2012/2013 is predicted to be 42.67 million MT, suggesting a safety index of 34.2%.
 
Wheat price was RMB2,336/MT in December and RMB2,196/MT in May ~ December, up 10% and 5.74% respectively on the year-on-year basis. Wheat price may average RMB2,207/MT in 2012/2013.
 
In view of wheat acreage expansion, wheat production is predicted to be more than 121 million MT in 2013/2014.

From “China Grains Market Weekly Report”