BEIJING: China’s July soybean imports fell 1.6percent from a year earlier to 11.48 million metric tons, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Friday.
The country’s oilseed import volume was down from a high base from last year’s surge in buying of Brazilian beans amid the trade war with the US Shipments also declined because of reduced buying on expectations of weaker feed demand amid a shrinking sow herd size, said two commodity analysts who asked to remain unidentified because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Imports by the world’s largest buyer of soybeans totalled 61.51 million tons in the January-to-July period, up 0.7percent from 61.05 million a year earlier, the data showed.
Shipments from the US are expected to continue arriving after Beijing resumed purchases of US soybeans late last year. In January to June, China imported 9.31 million tons of soybeans from the United States.
Purchases of the new US crop have also picked up in recent weeks, as China is expected to meet a commitment outlined by the White House in October to buy 25 million metric tons of US soybeans annually through 2028.
“With massive volumes of imported soybeans arriving in the near term, soybean crushing plants will gradually ramp up operations, and soybean meal inventories will further enter a stock-building cycle,” said Rosa Wang, an analyst at Shanghai JC Intelligence Co. “We expect August arrivals to exceed 10 million metric tons.”
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