Chinese soy buyers see imports peaking at 100 mln tns for coming years

Chinese soybean buyers attending a large U.S. soy export conference believe imports for 2023 will be a bit larger than some projections, but they don’t see import volumes growing much more in the coming years.

Sun Lige, vice-president of China’s Wellhope Foods Company Ltd, said on the sidelines of Soy Connext conference that the Asian country will probably import 100 million metric tons of soybeans in 2023, more than the 98 million tons projected by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

He said, however, that imports for the next five years will hover around that 100-million-ton level, as demand for the ingredient that is mostly used to make animal feed is set to stabilize.