China July soybean imports to surge 19% YoY: analysts

China’s soybean imports in July 2019 are expected to rise almost 20% compared with the same month in 2018 as shipments from Argentina are expected to recover, polled data from China-based market sources showed.

Agricensus surveyed eight market sources in China that gave a range of between 8.5-10 million mt with an average estimate of 9.54 million mt.

Of that, 1.5 million mt is expected to come from the US and the same figure from Argentina.

In July 2018, China imported 8.01 million mt of soybeans with just under 300,000 mt coming from Argentina.

July imports in 2019 are also expected to jump more than 10% compared to the June estimate.

Analysts and traders expect China’s June imports to reach an average of 8.63 million mt, up more than 17% on the 7.36 million mt the country imported in May, but down marginally on the 8.7 million mt imported in June 2018.

The range for June import estimates was between 7 million mt and 10 million mt.