China is likely to increase its purchases of US farm products

[caption id="attachment_4428" align="aligncenter" width="1014"] File Photo[/caption] At an online industry conference on Thursday (May 14, 2020), an executive at the state-owned agribusiness agency COFCO said China would accelerate the purchase of U.S. farm products and implement the first round of trade agreements with the United States. Soybeans are the top US export to China. However, rising Chinese soybean inventories in the coming months and falling crush margins could make buying U.S. beans unfavourable, said Zhang Hua, vice general manager of China, COFCO International. “China needs to digest huge soybean inventories from May to September,” said. He added that another “unfavorable factor” was that crush margins for U.S. shipments have fallen further. “Chinese crushers will struggle with bad crush margins for a long time in coming future,” he said. China’s soybean imports in 2019/20 are expected at 87.50 million tons, Zhang said, of which about 13.70 million tons are expected to come from the United States. Source: Online/SZK