GUANGZHOU: The amount of imported grain dropped, but the price soared in Guangdong province in the first three months this year due to global grain price hikes, Guangdong customs officials said.

The province imported 909,000 tons of grain, including soy and rice, in the first quarter. The total was down 6.8 percent year-on-year.

However, the value of the imported grain from January to March this year was $530 million, up by 66.5 percent from the first three months last year.

There has been a 68.6 percent rise in the price of imported grain this year, according to Guangdong customs.

And also in the first quarter this year, Guangdong imported 704,000 tons of soy, down 15.6 percent from the same period last year, but the price rose 83.7 percent.

Experts said the unstable weather in the world and the greenhouse effect has caused many places in the world to suffer from failed harvests.

The grain supply is facing a serious shortage throughout the whole world.

Even though China has ample grain provisions, the selling price of grain keeps soaring.

Currently, the storage of grain in Guangzhou is sufficient to support the city's demand for only 10 days, while Shenzhen's storage is enough to satisfy the city for 25 days, the provincial administration of grain said.

Guangdong has maintained its maximum grain productivity, 14 million tons a year, for many years. This amount accounts for only 40 percent of the whole province's demand.

About 24 million tons of grain need to be imported from other provinces such as Hunan, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Anhui and Jilin.

About 4 to 5 percent of grain in Guangdong markets is imported from other countries such as Thailand.

"People should not hoard grain," said Cheng Ganrong, a publicity official with the provincial agriculture department.

He said hoarding grain won't help ease the grain supply crisis, and it will make the prices higher.

Besides grain, the price of edible oil increased by a big margin from January to March.

The price of one ton of edible oil was $1,099 last month, hitting a new high.

The prices of imported palm oil, soy oil and mustard oil increased by 81.9 percent, 51.6 percent and 70.7 percent, respectively, from the same period last year.

However, the amount of imported oil dropped by 13.2 percent.

(HK Edition 04/21/2008 page2)