Vietnam is back buying South African maize in a big way
Vietnam has emerged as the main buyer of South African maize, taking 88% of last week’s 127,182-tonne exports. South Africa expects maize exports to rise to 3 million tonnes in 2026-27, supported by a record 17.1-million-tonne harvest and strong supplies.
It remains encouraging to see Vietnam buying so much of South Africa’s maize in the new 2026-27 year. For much of the past year, we didn’t enjoy much demand from the Far East; the big buyers were the neighbouring countries.
For example, last week South Africa exported 127 182 tonnes of maize. About 88% of it was exported to Vietnam, with the rest going to the Southern African countries.
South Africa’s maize exports in this new marketing year, which started in May 2026, currently stand at 343 530 tonnes. We still have a long way to go until the end of the year in April 2027.
We think we could see more exports this time around, likely 3.0 million tonnes, a notable increase from the 2025-26 maize exports of 2.0 million tonnes.
We have an ample maize harvest of 17.1 million tonnes, a record harvest, in addition to the large carryover stock from the past season. The reason for the slow exports last year was weak demand, not supply issues.
It is encouraging to see Vietnam return now, and we hope more countries in the Far East will resume buying South Africa’s high-quality maize.
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Source : AgriView
