Reuters – China’s soybean imports in the first two months of 2022 rose from the previous year, customs data showed recently, beating market expectations.
China, the world’s top importer of soybeans, brought in 13.94 million tonnes of the oilseed in the Jan.-Feb. period, up 4.1 per cent from 13.41 million tonnes in the same period in the previous year, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.
The market had expected smaller arrivals after adverse weather in Brazil — the top supplier of soybeans to China — delayed harvesting and cut estimates for the new crop.
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Trade flows according to Refinitiv data however, only showed 7.8 million tonnes of China soybean imports in January and 4.4 million tonnes for February imports, which totals 12.2 million tonnes of imports for the two months.
“Imports in the first months of 2022 were larger than we expected. Based on our data, the arrivals were not this high. Otherwise there wouldn’t be such tightness in the domestic market,” said Zou Honglin, analyst with the agriculture section of Mysteel, a China-based consultancy.
Zou said the discrepancy in the data could be because of non-commercial cargoes among the arrivals. “The commercial buying did not support such high figures,” Zou said.
