May 11, 2011

 

 

China, the world's largest soy buyer, imported 3.88 million tonnes of soy in April, up 10.5% from 3.51 million tonnes in March, figures from the General Administration of Customs of China showed Tuesday (May 10).

 

But April imports fell 7.4% from a year-ago period when China imported 4.19 million tonnes of the oilseed, which is crushed into edible oil and animal feed ingredients.

 

"Due to negative crushing margins, crushers earlier in the year slowed down imports," said one industry analyst. The China National Grain and Oils Information Centre (CNGOIC) estimated May imports could jump to 4.8 million tonnes.

 

China's commerce ministry earlier said it expected imports in May to be flat from the year-ago period or about 4.4 million tonnes.

 

The poor crushing margins was partly because of Beijing's release of state edible oil and soy reserves, aiming to cool food inflation, which helped drive up the country's inflation to 32-month high in March.

 

Recently the government released three million tonnes of domestic soy reserves to some crushers that had been asked to freeze their retail soyoil prices.

 

The move has also prompted many crushers to try to defer or cancel their previously booked soy cargoes.

 

"Continuing negative crushing margins in China have caused their soy imports to decline on-year in February and March. We expect this will continue to pressure China's soy imports and forecast China will import 55 million tonnes of soy - two million tonnes lower than the USDA's current forecast," Rabobank said in a report last week.

 

But still the forecast for 2010-11 imports of 55 million tonnes was higher than 50.34 million tonnes for 2009-10 as crushing capacity expansion coupled with rigid demand for the cooking oil and meat continues to spur imports.

 

Imports of vegetable oils, including palmoil, soyoil and rapeseed oil, in April totalled 490,000 tonnes, up 53.1% from the previous month, according to the customs data.