India, a leading soyameal exporter in Asia, will have difficulty expanding sales to Japan in the new marketing season starting this month, as Japanese crushers have been offering the product at competitive prices, traders say. Japanese importers have so far clinched deals for five to six cargoes of Indian soyameal from new crops, or 60,000-72,000 tonnes, for November-December shipments, they said.
This compares with 105,113 tonnes of Indian soyameal Japan imported last December and January, when Indian cargoes shipped from November to December arrived in Japan.
Traders said importers have been less aggressive than last year, when low prices on Indian soyameal bolstered Japanese buying interest.
"Now Japanese buyers are more interested in domestically produced soyameal, because it is cheaper than imported meal," said a trader at a major Japanese trading company.
India is one of the major soyameal suppliers to Japan along with China, the United States and Brazil. Japan consumes about 4 million tonnes a year of soyameal, a key protein in animal feed, and depends on imports for about one-fourth of its total needs.
Japanese soyameal prices have been dropping in recent months, reflecting steep falls in Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) futures. Prices of Indian and Chinese soyameal, however, are not directly linked to the Chicago market and they are more vulnerable to the supply and demand conditions of their local markets, traders said.
Japanese crushers currently offer soyameal at 31,000-32,000 yen per tonne ($290-299) in the domestic market, about 1,000-yen cheaper than Chinese soyameal. Indian soyameal is offered at 30,000 yen per tonne or less in the southern Japanese Island of Kyushu.
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