China bought huge amount of pork, sorghum from U.S.

[caption id="attachment_2622" align="aligncenter" width="1014"] File Picture[/caption] GFMM desk: China bought huge amount of pork, sorghum from U.S. Chinese firms have already purchased 700,000 tons of pork and 700,000 tons of sorghum from the United States this year to meet market demand, said a foreign ministry spokesman on October 15, 2019. China, the world’s top agriculture market, has also bought 320,000 tons of cotton, 230,000 tons of wheat and 20 million tons of soybeans from the U.S., spokesman Geng Shuang said at a daily press briefing. The comments came amid heightened attention on China’s purchases of U.S. farm goods, one of President Donald Trump’s key demands to resolve a months-long trade war between the two nations. Mr. Trump said on Friday that China had agreed to purchase $40 to $50 billion worth of agricultural goods from the U.S. in a first phase of an agreement to end the trade war. China has already brought in 500,000 tons of sorghum in the first eight months of the year, almost all from the United States, according to customs data. Chinese importers made a record large weekly purchase of American pork last week, ahead of the trade talks, including 18,810 tons for shipment this year and 123,362 tons for shipment in 2020, according to USDA data. China’s pork imports CNC-PORK-IMP from all origins for the first nine months of the year were 1.33 million tons, up 43.6% from the same period a year earlier, customs data showed on October 14, 2019. USDA also confirmed a net 1.18 million tons in soybean sales to China in the week ended October 3. 2019. But purchases booked by Chinese firms may not all get shipped, one analyst cautioned. Jim Huang, chief executive of China-America Commodity Data Analytics, an independent agriculture consultancy said, “Not all of the pork would be delivered to China this year and it is likely that some of the booking gets cancelled later.” Source: Reuters SZK