South Korea may buy corn

South Koreans are expected to buy corn after US prices fell late last week, while rising freight costs are expected to keep Japanese and Taiwanese buyers on the sidelines, traders said on Monday. Taiwanese importers are likely to be mostly quiet this week after a series of recent tenders for wheat and soya.
A Taiwanese trader said the Maize Industry Procurement Association could be interested in purchasing a corn cargo, but may have missed an opportunity after the rebound in freight prices.
"Prices have rebounded now, so although it was rumoured they were taking registrations from members for a shipment, it's not certain they will open a tender," said the trader at a major international grain merchant in Taiwan.
Long queues at Australia's Newcastle port, the world's largest coal export terminal following closures due to storms has lifted dry bulk prices in the past week.
The Baltic Exchange's Dry freight index, which tracks shipping goods, such as grains, coal, iron ore and sugar on major export routes, jumped 12.7 percent last week before closing at 5,922 points on Friday.
Spot voyage fixtures for modern Panama rates for the benchmark US Gulf to Asia route at around $74 per tonne, up from $72 a week ago, shipping brokers said.
"The Korea Feed Association will try to buy corn for October arrival this week through private negotiations or tenders if CBOT dips further," said a trader at an international grain house.
The organisation has bought only two cargoes of US corn for November arrival since it failed on April 17 to buy a total of 495,000 tonnes of corn for October and November.
Some Korean traders said corn import prices, including cost and freight, were still very high given near-record-breaking freight rates. "Overall, importing corn is still very expensive. We keep looking for cheaper grain through private negotiations," said an official at a member company of the KFA.
Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade fell almost 5 percent on Friday due to crop-friendly rain in the US Midwest and forecasts for better crop weather. In the soyameal market, South Korean importers are expected to seek to cover their October-December requirement.
In Japan, soyabean buyers were looking for chances to buy after covering about half of the requirements for August. Japanese buyers usually purchase about 240,000 to 250,000 tonnes each month, traders said. "After covering about half of the requirements, buying slowed down as freight rates started climbing again," a trader at a Japanese trading company said.
"The focus is back on freight rates. But some may step up purchases on views that shipping costs would rise even further if they were to wait longer," the trader said.
Activity among Japanese corn buyers remained slow, with about a quarter of the quarterly requirements yet to be covered. Last week, Zen-Noah, Japan's No 1 feed maker, said it would raise July-September compound feed prices by 1,100 yen a tonne on average, the fourth consecutive quarterly increase.
Zen-Noah, which has a 30 percent share of the domestic livestock feed market, said a weaker yen, rising freight rates and firmness in Chicago corn prices have boosted its procurement costs for the period.