Chinese buyers have been making large purchases of French wheat and barley along with Ukrainian corn and barley in the last week, Reuters trade sources said, taking advantage of a pause in surging prices to cover some of their feed grain needs, reports ProAgro Group.
While the total volumes bought were not yet clear, the sources said importers had secured at least several hundred thousand tonnes of grain from France and Ukraine.
The Chinese buyers also made major purchases of Australian feed wheat that again represented at least several hundred thousand tonnes, some of the sources added.
The deals point to China’s continued major grain import requirement, despite the arrival of its domestic corn crop and difficulties in its pig industry, and further illustrate the readiness of buyers to seize on falls in international prices.
Wheat futures soared to a nine-year high in the United States and a record peak in Europe last month, fuelled by concern about rain damage to Australia’s harvest and Russian export curbs, before retreating sharply since last week.
For French wheat, buyers were understood to have booked between six and 10 vessels, or potentially up to 600,000 tonnes, for shipment mainly between January and March, six traders said.
