(World-Grain) – Corn will surpass rice to become the country’s largest grain crop in terms of output this year, a Chinese think tank forecast Wednesday, but analysts still expect a surge of corn imports this year due to rapidly growing domestic demand, Global Times reported.
China’s grain output, which includes rice, wheat and corn, is likely to grow for the ninth consecutive year in 2012 and exceed 580 million tons in 2012, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said in a report. Last year, the country’s grain output reached 571 million tons, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed, the newspaper said.
