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Johannesburg - South Africa, looking for more export outlets for its maize after a bumper harvest last year, has received interest from China and is awaiting a response from the Venezuela government, an industry official said on Tuesday.
Nico Hawkins, an economist at farmers’ group Grain SA, said a Chinese government delegation visited the country last month to assess the crop.
“The Chinese government showed interest in South Africa’s maize production for possible imports,” Hawkins said.
He added: “It wasn’t a trade delegation, it was government officials coming to inspect how we handle our grains, how we produce, how we transport, what kind of pests we have....”
Hawkins said South Africa was also looking at Venezuela as a possible export market.
“We have prepared a pest information package for the Venezuela government ...we haven’t received anything yet back from them,” he said.
South Africa, the continent’s biggest maize producer, harvested 12.815 million tonnes of maize in the 2009/10 season, its biggest crop in three decades.
South Africa’s annual maize consumption is between 8-9 million tonnes.
For the 2010/11 season, the country is expected to harvest a lower maize crop than the previous season as continued wet weather disturbs the harvesting process and damage crops.
The government will releases its latest crop estimates figures on Thursday and traders expect the crop forecast to be cut to 10.63 million tonnes from last month’s forecast of 10.854 million tonnes.
The country had struggled to find export markets for the last year’s surplus after Zambia and Malawi took some of its traditional customers.
But a global supply crunch is opening new export markets for South Africa such as South Korea, Japan, Kuwait, Italy, Spain, Taiwan and Mexico.
South Africa exported 2.07 million tonnes of maize in the May 2010/April 2011 marketing season. The exports are seen higher in the 2011/12 marketing season, with the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy projecting exports to reach 2.2 million tonnes.