BEIJING: China's top corn producing province Heilongjiang will cut highway toll fees for trucks carrying corn, following last week's move by neighboring Jilin province to relax trucking rules in an effort to ease logjams and high costs.
Trucks transporting corn out of Heilongjiang, located in China's northeast corn belt, will be exempt from or get lower highway toll fees, according to China's National Grain and Oils Information Center, the country's grains council, citing an official document.
The new rule, effective from Dec. 20 this year to April 30 next year, said trucks transporting corn out of the province will be accorded express highway passage previously applied only to carriers of fresh or live agricultural products.
Jilin, China's No. 2 corn producer, last week said road regulators will not stop or punish vehicles that are breaking the rules if they are one tonne over the new limit.
Output from China's northeastern corn belt is typically trucked to ports and shipped to southern parts of the country.
China introduced a nationwide crackdown on overloading trucks in September, which has hampered transport of grains, coal and metals and pushed up costs.
Corn futures for January delivery on the Dalian Commodity Exchange jumped as much as 22 percent by mid-November from September lows, partly due to delays in shipments after the new rules came into force.
Disruption to transportation is particularly tough for Heilongjiang because it is the farthest in the corn belt province from the ports and sits on the nation's largest corn stockpile.
Because of the logjams, trading companies have slowed corn purchases from Heilongjiang despite strong demand in the south, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Local governments, under pressure to ensure farmers can sell their grains, jumped to facilitate transportation rules as crops hit the market, Xinhua said.
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