[Buenos Aires 10th Reuters]-The Argentine Ministry of Agriculture announced on May 10 that it would agree with China on an agreement on export of feed soy meal to China. Chinese officials visited Argentina's soybean meal crushing plant last month.
The agreement connects Argentina, the world's largest soybean meal exporter, with China, the largest consumer. Argentina has been trying to enter the Chinese market for many years, but China refused to import from Argentina to protect its domestic crushers.
But the US-China trade war has strengthened Argentina's position as China expands its choices of importers as an alternative to rice soybean meal.
Gustavo Ydigoras, chairman of grain export industry group CIARA-CEC, stressed to Reuters that it was a “historical agreement”. However, after the export start procedure was completed in October, he said, “It will not be shipped immediately at this time.” Argentina is the world's largest soybean meal exporter. The total amount of soybean meal exports in 2019 is estimated at 26 million tons and soybeans at 8.5 million tons.