February 26, 2025

 

COFCO launching port terminal in Brazil that will handle soybean shipments to China

 

 

 

China's leading food and agriculture company is launching a new terminal in Santos, a port city in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

 

The facility is set to handle its first shipment of 1.5 million tonnes of certified sustainable soybeans bound for China.

 

China Oil and Foodstuffs Corp (COFCO) International has partnered with Modern Farming and China Shengmu Organic Milk, subsidiaries of dairy giant Mengniu Group, under a new long-term strategic deal that will extend to 2030. Under the agreement, 1.5 million tonnes of certified sustainable soybeans will be shipped from COFCO International's new Santos export terminal to China.

 

"It shows that Chinese businesses are committing to sustainability by sourcing deforestation-free soybeans from Brazil," said Jack Hurd, executive director of the Tropical Forest Alliance, a World Economic Forum initiative that helps companies eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. "This agreement is an example of Chinese companies stepping up, recognising that protecting the tropics requires not just Western businesses but also Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Middle Eastern companies. This shows that China and its companies are committed to this sustainability agenda," Hurd told China Daily.

 

The agreement is part of the Green Value Chain Taskforce. It is the second order; the first was completed in May 2024.

 

Brazil has become a key supplier in China's push to diversify agricultural imports and secure supply amid the latter's rising trade tensions with the United States. Brazil now dominates China's soybean and corn imports, outpacing the US.

 

In January, COFCO reported that up to 75% of its soybeans came from Brazil, Bloomberg reported. China now accounts for more than 70% of Brazil's annual soybean exports.

 

COFCO forecast that the new terminal in Santos will ship eight million tonnes of agricultural products this year, including 5.5 million tonnes of soybeans and corn, and 2.5 million tonnes of sugar. In total, the company expects to ship as much as 18 million tonnes of soy and corn from Brazil in 2025, according to Bloomberg.

 

Hurd said he expects that the agribusiness relationship between Brazil and China will strengthen "because the agriculture sector in Brazil is quite strong — soy, beef, corn, things like that. It's got a very well-developed agriculture sector, and because of its climate, it's able to grow a lot of crops with multiple crops per year".

 

- China Daily