BEIJING, May 9 (Reuters) -China’s soybean imports in April jumped 18%from a year earlier, data showed on Thursday, as buyers snapped up cheap and plentiful Brazilian beans from the South American producer while it was wrapping up its harvest season.
Total arrivals for the month were 8.57 millionmetric tons, accordingto the General Administration of Customs, the highest on record for April.
Soybean arrivals into the world’s top buyer during the January-April period were 27.15 milliontons, down 2.9% from the same period last year, the data showed.
The rise was driven by stronger soymeal demand for animal feed as profit margins at hog farms improved, said an analyst at a Chinese agricultural trading firm based in Shanghai, who declined to be identified.
In May, soybean arrivals shouldremain strong, rising to 10.98 million tons, before declining in June from because of risingglobal soybean prices and weakening Chinese feed demand, LSEG analyst Libin Zhou said in a note on May 7.
Recent torrentialrainfall and heavy flooding in Brazil’s second-largest soybean-growingstate Rio Grande do Sul is disrupting the final stages of the harvest and hampering the shipping of grains to port.
Thepotential crop damage has clouded the supply outlook forthe world’s largest soybean producer and bolstered Chicago soybean futures prices.
U.S. soybean exports to China, which have been declining for several years as Brazil builds its dominance in the world’s biggest oilseed market, face more competition in2024 from higher supply in Argentina, the world’s third-largest producer.
Imports of vegetable oils in April were 494,000 tonnes, down 17.7% from the previous month.