China ready to invest in Russian soy as trade war with US rages

BEIJING, Jun 4 (PRIME) -- China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO) is considering raising imports of Russian soy and creating soy production in the country as a trade war with the U.S. is raging, China Overseas Development Association’s Secretary-General He Zhenwei told PRIME on Tuesday.

“Everybody knows that China imports many products from the U.S, especially soy, as 30% of all soy that China consumes is imported from the U.S. This is a large amount of more than 32 million tonnes. But the current trade war creates a great chance to raise supplies of soy from Russia to China. We are thinking about that. We, including COFCO, are thinking on how to use that chance to raise soy exports from Russia,” he said.

Russia’s soy output stands at 3 million tonnes, but China needs 3 million tonnes more. “It is obvious that we are unable to buy it all, soy has to be grown and harvested. The harvested soy should be stored somewhere, so we need storages, and we have to deliver the soy to China besides all these technical moments. So we have to think about Chinese companies investing in soy production in Russia,” he said.

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