February 20, 2009

Taiwan plans to increase imports of soy from Brazil to reduce freight costs amid a slump of exports to the US.

Container traffic to the US has dropped, according to Leon Chen, manager of business development at TTET Union Corp., Taiwan's largest soy crusher.

Chen said Asia shipped finished goods to the US and returned with containers of US soy, a special situation that will not be repeated.

Taiwan's economy weakened rapidly last quarter as a drop in exports and business investments pushed the country into its first recession since 2001, the statistics bureau said.

Taiwan may purchase 2 to 2.1 million tonnes of soy this year, with as much as 70 percent to come from Brazil and the rest from the US, Chen said.

That will be a reverse of trend, as Taiwan used to buy soy predominantly from the US, Chen noted.

Chen said TTET Union, which crushes 1 million tonnes of soy into 800,000 tonnes of soymeal and 200,000 tonnes of oil, expects volumes to decline as much as 20 percent this year.