China’s US soybean imports soar in wake of phase one trade war deal

China brought in 3.09 million tonnes of soybeans from the US in December, 44 times the level a year ago, data from the General Administration of Customs showed

Beijing has pledged to buy billions of dollars more in agricultural goods from the US as part of their phase one trade war deal

2-MIN READ2-MIN

Published: 12:22pm, 31 Jan 2020Updated: 6:08pm, 15 Feb 2020

China’s imports of soybeans from the United States surged in December from a year earlier, data showed on Friday, as China ramped up purchases during a thaw in the two country’s trade war.

China brought in 3.09 million tonnes of soybeans from the US in December, 44 times the level a year ago, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

The figure was also up from 2.56 million tonnes in November, after some delayed cargoes cleared customs, but was still shy of the six million-plus levels for US December imports to China in 2017 and earlier years.

Friday’s data provided a breakdown of China’s buying by origin after figures released earlier in January showed it bought 88.51 million tonnes of soybeans overall in 2019, just up from 88.03 million tonnes in 2018.

Beijing has pledged to buy billions of dollars more in agricultural goods from the US as part of their phase one trade deal to calm their bitter trade row.

Soybeans made up more than half of its US agricultural purchases in 2017 before the trade war erupted and are expected to make up a key part of any increased purchases.

For all of 2019, China brought in 16.94 million tonnes of US soybeans, edging up from 16.6 million tonnes in 2018, when shipments nearly halved from the previous year due to the trade dispute.