WINNIPEG (Staff) – Canada’s status in China as a top quality wheat supplier should give this country an edge when it comes to serving China’s burgeoning appetite, says a U.S. expert on Chinese grain trade.
China’s grain imports are expected to nearly triple by 2000. Scott Rozelle of Stanford University told a grain industry conference here last week that China’s grain purchases will start to take off over the next few years and could reach 40 million tonnes by the turn of the century.
His study doesn’t break those projected imports down into specific grains, nor does it say who will be the supplier. But in an interview later he said a lot of it is bound to be wheat and that bodes well for Canada.
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“The Chinese very much have a perception that Canadian wheat is the best, is the highest quality,” said Rozelle. “It’s in great demand internally in China because the millers want it and want the premium that comes from milling it.”
As long as Canada maintains that quality advantage and continues to be a consistent, dependable supplier, it will likely be China’s first choice for buying wheat, he said.
Earlier, in a speech to more than 300 grain industry officials attending Grain World ’96, Rozelle dismissed suggestions that China will within 20 or 30 years be buying virtually all the grain available on world markets and in effect “starve the world.”
