(Yicai Global) Jan. 13 -- China’s grain reserves are at a record high at a time when many countries are suspending food exports amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Xinhua News Agency reported today, citing the director of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration.

The country has enough rice and wheat to feed all its 1.4 billion people for one year, said Zhang Wufeng. The processed grain and oil reserves in medium and large cities is sufficient to last for more than 20 days.

The grain stocks of companies of a designated size, with an annual turnover of more than CNY20 million (USD2.9 million), have hit a 15-year high and corn inventories in the northeast are three times what they were at the same period last year, Zhang said.

These firms bought 110 million tons of autumn grain as of Jan. 5, five million tons more than last year. Some 98 percent of this was for market purposes, a gain of 8 percentage points from the same period last year.

Sales of autumn crops in the south should finish this month while the harvest in the northeast of the country is still at a peak and sales are likely to continue until the end of April, he added.

Editor: Kim Taylor