E-Malt.com News article: 3400

China: Barley acreage was 920,000 ha this year against 775,000 a year ago. The official crop estimate is 3.66 million tonnes versus 2.72 million tonnes last year. Private estimates, however, range from 2.5 to 3.8 million tonnes. For comparison, China’s total grain and soybean crop is 455 million tonnes. Barley is not a favoured crop in China. Production is centred in the double-cropping areas in a wide circle around Shanghai, in Gansu and Xinjiang. It is losing ground in the prime agricultural regions of the Northeast. The share of malting barley is particularly small this year, it dropped well below 1 million tonnes, because drought conditions during vegetation affected protein contents and screenings. Prices for domestic barley, which were (equivalent) EUR 100-120 last year, are now EUR 170-180, delivered malting plants.

Chinese beer output in 2003 was 253.9 million hl. Forecasts for 2004 are 270 – 280 million hl, for 2005 308 million hl. In January-July 2004, however, the beer output was up by 16%. If sales continued at that pace, a total of 294.5 million hl would already be achieved by the end of 2004. As seen in the past, malt usage is heavily influenced by prices. Present malt input estimates run from 9 to 10.4 kilos per hl. Total barley need estimates range from 3,0 to 3,6 Mill. tons in 2004, and 400.000 tons more in 2005. In theory, this would result in a great increase of barley imports, (2.5 – 3.0 million tonnes), but in January/August imports were only 1.226 million tonnes, and realistic forecasts expect total imports of 2 million tonnes in the crop year 2004/05.


05 October, 2004