China, the world's top soya buyer, will import 2 million tonnes more in the 2015/16 marketing year at 80 million tonnes, an official grains think tank said in a revised forecast, up 2.1 percent from 2014/15 due to higher-than-expected crushing demand. Imports of soya in the previous marketing year that runs from October to September stood at 78.36 million tonnes.
The upward revision was due to better-than-expected demand for soyameal, a protein-rich feed ingredient, following a recovery in the country's hog stocks, the China National Grain and Oils Information Center said in its latest report published on Thursday. The projected growth of 2.1 percent is the lowest since 2011/12 as the country's overall economy is slowing.
Cheaper soyameal is largely being used to replace rapeseed meal and cottonseed meal due to shortages at home because of expected lower domestic production of the two crops, the think tank said. China's rapeseed meal output was likely to fall 3.7 percent in 2015/16 from the previous year, while output of cottonseed meal was seen to decrease 18 percent on year, according to the grains centre's estimate.