Only one firm offers in tender for corn from India's PEC - trade

A farmer removes weeds from her corn field in Kolkata, India, February 28, 2016. To match INDIA-BUDGET. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri/Files·Reuters

HAMBURG (Reuters) - Indian state-run trading company PEC has received offers from only one firm in an international tender which closed on Tuesday to buy and import 50,000 tonnes yellow corn (maize), European traders said.

The lowest offer was $254.55 a tonne c&f for shipment to the Adani Tuna terminal in the port of Kandla followed by $255.30 a tonne c&f for shipment to other terminals in Kandla submitted by the same trading house, they said. The offers were made for 48,000 tonnes.

Offers in the tender must remain valid up to June 24, the traders said.

The corn must be free of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), they added.

"I think trading houses did not offer because of the very tight shipment period combined with the complexity of providing GMO-free corn," one European trader said.

The tender sought shipment between June 27 to July 15, the traders said.

On, March 17, PEC cancelled a previous tender to import 240,000 tonnes of corn as India was hoping for a bigger-than-expected local summer harvest and following uncertainty over the availability of non-genetically modified corn.

(Reporting by Michael Hogan, Editing by Mark Potter)

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