Chinese importers have recently booked French wheat for shipment during the first half of 2020, traders said, adding to an unusual run of French exports to China in the past few months. Exporters have in the past two weeks sold at least two or three cargoes of 60,000 tonnes each in a new round of sales under China's 2020 import quota, traders said.
Some traders put the sales higher at between five and 12 vessels, although others cautioned this higher range may include wheat already sold last year under China's 2019 quota.
France has already shipped about 640,000 tonnes of wheat to China since the start of the 2019/20 season last July. The French shipments were part of what was expected to be up to 1 million tonnes of European Union wheat exported to China as Beijing sought to use up some of its 2019 import quota at a time of trade tensions with other suppliers auch as the United States. Talk of fresh sales to China helped push up wheat premiums in French export zones this week.
Chinese demand has been a welcome boost for France, the EU's biggest wheat supplier, which has been trying to shift its second-largest harvest on record. Chinese importers are also thought to have purchased Australian and Canadian wheat at the start of 2020, traders said.
The signs of import demand have also eased concerns that a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak in China would disrupt grain consumption. Grain markets are also waiting to see if China turns to US supplies of wheat and other crops after committing to expand purchases of US agricultural goods as part of a trade agreement signed with Washington last month.
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