2009-05-04 10:30:36 - www.shcri.com - Soybean originated from China. Before 1950s, China was the world’s largest soybean manufacturer and exporter. But China gradually lost the advantage after 1950s.

The turning point of soybean market was in 1996. Before that, China had always been the net exporter of soybean. But in 1996, Chinese government adjusted the trade policies to quota management in order to fill up the shortage of domestic soybean output. However, soybean’s import tariff stuck to 3 percent after the adjustment, owing to the fact that some joint venture companies in China owned the exclusive import and export franchise.

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In 2001, after entering WTO, China implemented the promise to liberalize the trade of agricultural products and cancel the import tariff barriers of soybean, wheat, rapeseed and peanut oil. Therefore, soybeans poured into China and the amount kept increasing year by year.

In 2008, China’s import of soybeans amounted to 37.436 million tons, a jump of 21.5 percent compared with that of last year. From January to March in 2009, the soybean import saw a year-on-year increase of 30 percent to 10.15 million tons. Soybeans were imported mainly from U.S, Brazil and Argentina.

Since the latter half of 2008, China's import price of soybean has kept a continuous drop, the same case with the

international soybean price since the last third of February in 2009. Due to these factors, the soybean price in Heilongjiang has decreased by 40 percent from RMB 6100/ton in July, 2008 to RMB 3700/ton in April, 2009.

China is always the only country that plants the non transgenic soybeans and Heilongjiang is the main soybean-producing area in China. Soybean is also the important source of farmers’ income. More imports of transgenic soybeans and fewer exports of non transgenic soybeans have affected the bread-and-butter issue of farmers and may lead to the extinction of the local soybeans in Heilongjiang.

Market in China pays more attention to the low price, rather than the safety of food. Therefore, the imported transgenic soybeans and soybean oil have monopolized the market in recent years. Nowadays in China, 70 percent of the oil processing plants are foreign-owned enterprises and joint ventures while 80 percent of soybean pressing capacity is dominated by food multinationals.

At present, the soybean import sees no downtrend. On the contrary, it is predicted that the import will amount to over 40 million tons in 2009.

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