China, the world’s largest soyabean importing country, imported 52.4 million tonnes of soyabean during January to August 2015, up 9.8% year on year (y/y), showed data released by Chinese customs.
In July, the country imported 9.5 million tonnes of soyabean, up 27% y/y.
Of the 9.5 million tonnes, 6.37 million tonnes were imported from Brazil, up 22.1% y/y, driven by sharp devaluation of Brazilian real, the exchange rate of which against the US dollar has dropped 40% since the beginning of 2015, a Chinese soyabean analyst told IHS Maritime.
China’s soyabean import from the United States dropped 67% during September 2014 to July 2015 to 3.27 million tonnes.
China’s soyabean imports reduced to 8.3 million tonnes in August 2015, and it will continue to drop to 6.8 million in September, stated Chinese financial information provider www.cnfol.com, which projected that the imports will stand at 6.2 million tonnes in October and 6.5 million tonnes in November.
China National Grain and Oils Information Center estimated that China’s soyabean imports for 2014/15 harvest (October 2014 to September 2015) will reach a new high of 76 million tonnes, and the volume for 2015/16 will amount to 77 million tonnes.
The country’s soyabean imports surged from 290,000 in 1995, the year it started to import soyabean, to 71.4 million tonnes in 2014, and China’s dependency on imported soyabeans is over 80% in the last five years, stated Heilongjiang Soyabean Association secretary-general Wang Xiaolin.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
