Japanese oilseed crushers are set to finish buying soyabeans for February shipment this week ahead of the New Year holiday, but activity in South Korea and Taiwan is seen quiet after recent tenders, traders said on Monday. After wrapping up the November to February shipments most of which were supplied by the United States Japanese importers will look at South American soya for March if their quality and price are competitive with the US product, traders said.
Given the current high freight rates, it could be more costly for Japan to import South American soyabeans than WE soyabeans, due to the longer shipment period could. "We will start business for March shipment next month," said an official at a major Japanese oilseed crushing company.
Many Japanese companies are closed from December 29 to January 3 for the end-of-year holidays.
In the corn market, Japanese feed makers are expected to stay on the sidelines this week, having almost finished quarterly purchasing programmes for January-March shipments, traders said.
One trader estimated Japanese buyers had covered about 80 percent of their corn needs for the first quarter, or roughly 3.2 million tonnes, through basis trading.
Japanese companies are expected to buy by the end of January the remaining 800,000 tonnes of corn that they need in the first quarter, and place orders when import costs come down, he said.
In Taiwan, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp has set a tender for 35,000 tonnes of US corn for January delivery on Friday. No other buying activity is slated for this week, traders said.
In South Korea, some flour millers are considering switching to more US wheat in light of a dip in the available supply of Canadian Western Red Spring (CWRS) next year, they said.
"We are assessing if it is possible to replace the Canadian wheat with US DNS wheat," one flour miller in Seoul said, referring to US Dark Northern Spring wheat with protein content at a minimum of 14 percent.
Lower output of Canadian wheat No 2 or better grade, with protein at a minimum of 13.5 percent, is projected to result in tighter supplies to Korean markets, traders said. South Korea imported 2.36 million tonnes of wheat for flour milling last year, official data showed.
Of the total, over 1.3 million tonnes came from the United States, 882,825 tonnes from Australia and 145,453 tonnes from Canada, the data showed.
Other grain importers for feed production and food processing are expected to keep a low profile after they bought reactively this month, traders said.
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