China’s state-owned national grain stock manager has snapped up around 240,000 tons of domestic corn from farmers in the first two days of this week in a bid to support cash prices after two weeks of selloff.
The stockpiler held two rounds of daily auctions this Monday and Tuesday to purchase four full cargo worth of new crop corn from the domestic market. The size of the auction on Monday was 150,000 tons, all of which were traded.
It was followed by another auction of 90,000 tons on Tuesday.
The stockpiler announced another round of purchase of 120,000 tons of corn via auctions today.
As a result, the main corn futures contract in China bounced nearly 3% higher since last Friday’s close to hit the highest level in two weeks at 2,846 yuan per ton.
The state-backed purchases came at a time when farmer sales in China have been stagnant since the start of the Lunar New Year holiday season nearly a month ago. Both cash and futures prices in China fell sharply between mid-January and last Friday.