China's government sold 81.5 percent of the Soyabeans offered at a weekly state auction on Tuesday, with volumes slightly up from the previous week, as Beijing's stockpiling tightened supplies in the inland provinces. The government sold 244,116 tonnes of the 299,570 tonnes on offer at an average price of 4,145 yuan ($660) per tonne.
Beijing stockpiled more than 3 million tonnes of domestic Soyabeans this crop year until the programme ended in April. It also holds about 3 million tonnes from its stockpiling in 2011/12 and 800,000 tonnes from the 2012/13 scheme, analysts said. Analysts said there would be a limited impact on imports from the state sale because the stocks were either sold to inland crushers, which only process domestic soya, or food companies that use only Chinese Soyabeans, which are free of genetically modified organisms.