August 3, 2009

China, the world's No.1 soy buyer, revised upward for the second time its estimate for the country's soy imports in July to 4.82 million tonnes, exceeding the previous month's actual imports at a record 4.71 million tonnes.

In early July, the country saw soy imports for the month at 4.28 million tonnes, up from a previous projection of 3.56 million tonnes. Chinese crushers have in the first half of this year bought 22.09 million tonnes of soy, up 28 percent from a year earlier. The soy industry is also being encouraged to go out and establish operations abroad to import soy and build an infrastructure in countries to ease the export of the soy back to China. China has increased its stocks of soy to an expected 4.6 million tonnes this year - up by 600,000 tonnes on the 2007/08 figure of 4 million tonnes.