South Africa will continue talks with China on Tuesday to attract new investment into agro-processing plants and find a market for the country's surplus maize, the agriculture minister said on Monday.

South Africa, the continent's largest producers of maize, produced a surplus of about 4 million tons for the 2009/10 season, but with limited markets and poor prices has struggled to sell the surplus internationally.

"Although China does not import maize as a necessity, they import value-added products which would be cattle-feed and poultry-feed, so the discussions we are having would be to use some of the maize for value-addition, which would then mean that we set up systems for agro-processing for the surplus maize that we do have," said Tina Joemat-Pettersson, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries told reporters ahead of her departure to China.

Reported by Reuters