LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) - China, the world's biggest soy buyer, expects to import 85 million tonnes of soybeans in 2016/17, up from the prior season, although bumper stocks in storage should limit the increase, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Li Xigui, division director with state-run China National Grain & Oils Information Center (CNGOIC), told the IGC grain conference in London, soybean imports were expected to reach 82 million tonnes in the 2015/16 year on an October-September season.
That compared with 78.35 million tonnes in 2014/15, CNGOIC figures showed.
The forecast for 2016/17 is slightly below the U.S. Department of Agriculture's current forecast for Chinese soybean imports of 87 million tonnes.
"There will be increase but not to such a great level," Li said through a translator.
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"Although American soybean exports to China are on the increase, the increase is controllable."
Li said China had been stockpiling soybeans for a number of years.
"We need to hurry up the sale of these reserves," he said, adding that the global market was "too optimistic" about further Chinese soybean demand.
China imported 7.66 million tonnes of soybeans in May, up 8.3 pct from 7.07 million tonnes in April, figures from the General Administration of Customs of China showed last week.
Li forecast a marginal decline in China's wheat production in 2016/17 (June/May) to 130.1 million tonnes from the prior season's 130.2 million.
Imports were seen stable at 3.0 million tonnes.
China corn production was forecast to fall to 218 million tonnes from the prior season's 224.6 million, reflecting a 2.6 percent fall in planted area and 0.5 percent drop in yields.
Li said corn imports would, however, decline to 1.0 million tonnes from the prior season's 2.7 million tonnes due to a glut of supplies of feed grains.
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"Our capacity is saturated so we try to reduce our stocks," he said. (Reporting by Jonathan Saul and Nigel Hunt; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
