Brazil's soyabean exports hit record volumes last month, grain exporter association Anec said on Thursday, citing a weak domestic currency and trade tensions between the United States and China for bolstering business for local farmers. Brazil's April soyabean exports reached 11.63 million tonnes, about 1 million tonnes more than the same month last year, Anec said in a report.
"Evidently, with the strength of the dollar, the producer will free up more beans for export," Sergio Mendes, head of Anec, said in a telephone interview. Soya contracts are priced in dollars. Brazilian farmers also stand to gain from a drought in Argentina, the world's third largest producer, and China's slowing purchases of US soya as the two countries trade threats over tariffs, he said.
The fresh figures indicate Brazil is on track to remain the world's most prominent soyabean exporter and China's largest supplier of the oilseed. This year, the country is likely to sell 70 million tonnes of soyabeans overseas, a new all-time high, according to consultancy INTL FC Stone.
The South American country will receive an estimated $36 billion in export revenue from the so-called soya complex of soyabeans, soya oil and soyameal this year, data from soya crusher association Abiove show. On Wednesday, the government said Brazilian soyabean shipments totalled 10.26 million tonnes in April, close to a record of 10.96 million tonnes exported in May 2017.
Anec data differs from numbers released by the government because they are compiled under different methodologies, Mendes said. For the first four months of the year, Brazil's soya exports rose by 5.4 percent to 29.2 million tonnes, the strongest Jan-April reading in history, Anec said.