CHINA, the world's second-biggest corn producer, may export 44 percent less of the grain next year as domestic consumption soars to feed an expanding livestock sector, an official at Jilin Grain Group Co. said.

Corn exports in 2007 and 2008 may total 2.5 million tons, down from 4.5 million tons in the current year ending in September, said Jiang Jianhua, vice chairman of Jilin Grain, in a report prepared for a conference in Guangzhou on Friday.

Reduced Chinese corn exports will further shrink worldwide supplies that are forecast by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fall this year to the lowest since 1978. Corn prices have risen 87 percent in the past year due to record production of ethanol and global demand for livestock feed.

"Driven by the increased industrial usage and declining stock, domestic supply is becoming tighter and tighter,'' Jiang wrote in his report. China's hog and poultry industry is recovering, and industrial use of corn has increased by 15 percent a year for the last decade, he said.

China may produce 145 million tons of corn this year, up from 144 million tons in 2006, Jiang said. Jilin Grain Group and China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corp. are the only two companies authorized to export grain from China.

The country's corn plantings are forecast to rise 1 percent to 27.4 million hectares this year, the China National Grain and Oils Information Center said March 7.

Production, second only to that of the United States, is expected to rise 1.4 percent to 146 million tons, the State-owned center said.

(SD-Agencies)