China's soyabean imports will reach 7 million tonnes in July, exceeding the previous month's record shipments as a poor harvest and rising demand depress its domestic supplies to a four-year low, Hamburg-based oilseeds analyst Oil World said.
"Chinese soyabean imports have been boosted to a record level in June and are also likely to be very high in July 2013 partly to replenish the unusually low stocks of imported soyabeans and to satisfy demand from the domestic crushing industry," Oil World said on Tuesday.
China will import 7.0 million tonnes of soyabeans in July, up from 5.87 million in July 2012 and up from last month's previous record 6.93 million tonnes, the analyst predicted.
In June, China's soyabean imports surged around 36 percent on May as easing port congestion in key exporter Brazil enabled shipments to meet strong Chinese demand. Chinese soyabean stocks will fall to a four-year low of 8.0 million tonnes at the end of July, Oil World said, citing a reduced harvest, robust demand from China's food processing industry and higher soyabean crushings for animal feed and vegetable oil production. China's soyabean stocks totalled 11.8 million tonnes at the same time last year. China has also been buying millions of tonnes of wheat and corn over the past few weeks partly because of rain damage to its grain crops.