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 million metric tons, according to 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 million tons, 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 should remain strong, rising to 10.98 million tons, before declining in June from because of rising global soybean prices and weakening Chinese feed demand, LSEG analyst Libin Zhou said in a note on May 7.
Recent torrential rainfall and heavy flooding in Brazil's second-largest soybean-growing state Rio Grande do Sul is disrupting the final stages of the harvest and hampering the shipping of grains to port.
The potential crop damage has clouded the supply outlook for the 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 in 2024 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. (Reporting by Mei Mei Chu; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
