China Slashes Soy Tariffs to Zero for Five APTA Countries
Xu Wei
DATE:  Jun 27 2018
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
China Slashes Soy Tariffs to Zero for Five APTA Countries China Slashes Soy Tariffs to Zero for Five APTA Countries

(Yicai Global) June 27 -- China will lift tariffs on soybeans imported from some Asian countries, it announced yesterday in a notice that also included a list of reductions on other products.

China will drop duties on soya imported from Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement signatories India, South Korea, Bangladesh, Laos and Sri Lanka from 3 percent to zero, the notice issued by the customs and tariff commission under China's cabinet the State Council declared. The list also includes chemicals, farm produce, medical supplies, clothes, and aluminum and steel products, which will benefit from differential degrees of reductions.

The country had earlier vowed to slam a retaliatory 25 percent import tax on US legumes as a riposte to that country's duties imposed in the opening salvoes of US President Donald Trump's budding trade war, in a move that target's Trump's rural electoral base.

China has recently upped its imports from Brazil and Russia and sought to diversify its sources to fill the US gap. Russia, India, South Korea, Bangladesh, Laos and Sri Lanka are neither main soya suppliers for the entire world nor for China, however.

India's output last year was 9.5 million tons of beans, of which it consumed 80 percent domestically, statistics show, while Russia's production was 3.7 million tons, but with only 0.5 million tons exported.

China's three main suppliers are Brazil, the US and Argentina. The former brought in 51 million tons from Brazil last year, or 53.3 percent of its overall imports. US beans made up 34 percent -- a new low since 2006 -- with American soy sent to China worth USD12 billion.

Editor: Ben Armour

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Keywords:   ASIA,Soybean,Tariff