September 8, 2006

 

China grain market sentiment positive this week

 

 

Sentiment among Chinese grain traders appeared to be more bullish as a recovery in demand gathered momentum in the week to Wednesday, according to a weekly survey by the China National Grains and Oils Information Centre released Friday (Sep 8).

 

Overstocking has shown signs of easing, with import arrivals in September expected to decline. Furthermore, tight supplies were witnessed in some areas, contributing to traders' bullishness, said the government-backed think-tank.

 

Traders became more positive about soymeal this week, as increases in prices for pork and poultry have triggered a rebound in demand for feed, CNGOIC said.

 

But traders are fairly cautious ahead of the new corn harvest (in October and November), seeing that an early frost may cause a decrease in production. Their attitude to corn was largely unchanged from last week, it added.

 

Traders' bullishness on soyoil continued to pick up this week, thanks to a drop in import arrivals of soyoil expected later this year, according to CNGOIC.

 

Traders grew increasingly optimistic about wheat, supported by a pickup in sales of flour lately, in addition to a small gain in wheat prices this week, it added.

 

The following ratings are provided by CNGOIC's Marketing Monitoring Division:

 

	Sep 6	Aug 30	Aug 23	Aug 16	Aug 9
Corn	54.3	54.3	57.2	57.2	54.8
Rice	50.0	49.4	51.9	52.5	55.0
Wheat	56.9	52.7	49.2	48.1	45.8
Soybeans	54.1	52.0	51.0	50.1	48.5
Soymeal	58.0	54.5	54.2	53.5	53.5
Soyoil	56.7	53.5	52.8	57.5	56.7

       Note:   10-extremely bearish,

                 50-neutral

                 100-extremely bullish

 

The ratings are based on data collected from 400 market participants, including storage firms, oilseed processors and traders in China's 17 major producing and consuming provinces.