SA buys yellow corn for first time in two years

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Mongezi Mtati

According to Business Week, Jannie de Villiers, chief executive officer of Grain SA, a farmers' group, said that South Africa is importing two cargoes of yellow corn from Romania, its first imports of the grain in two years. Shipments are normally about 30,000 metric tons per vessel and the ports where the corn will be delivered are in Western Cape Province, de Villiers said. Cape Town is the main port in the province.

South African stocks of yellow corn, which is mainly used as animal feed in the country, fell 37 percent to 1.42 million tons as of the end of November from a year earlier, according to the South African Grain Information Service, Business Week reports.

Bloomberg Africa reports that South African corn prices rose the most since October on concern local stocks are being depleted by exports while global supplies will be curbed by a drought in South America. South Africa has exported 1.96 million metric tons of corn, Since May 2011, according to the South African Grain Information Service, an industry body. "About 200,000 tons are still expected to be exported between January and March and this will take away the extra stock," Brink van Wyk, a trader at Bosveld Graan (Pty) Ltd., told Bloomberg. "This automatically means higher prices."

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