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Chinese market reopens to Australian barley

  • Mercados: Agriculture
  • 04/08/23

China will end anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on Australian barley after lengthy negotiations between the two countries culminated in an official statement from Beijing on Friday.

On 5 August, Beijing will end both the 73.6pc anti-dumping tariff and additional 6.9pc anti-subsidy tariff on Australian barley imports, which have been in place since May 2020. Tariffs were initially scheduled to remain in place until at least May 2025, five years after their introduction.

China began a three-month review into cancelling duties on Australian barley in April, while Australia suspended its corresponding complaint to the World Trade Organisation.

Chinese buyers weigh up options

Chinese market participants expect importers to book the first sizeable purchases of old-crop barley to arrive from October onwards, followed by new-crop volumes to arrive from November.

In the meantime, Chinese feed manufacturers have a range of competitive sources to choose from. Imports of around 1.5mn t of corn and a further 1.5mn t of barley and sorghum are scheduled to arrive at Chinese ports in the next two months, mostly from sellers in Brazil and France.

Local feed wheat and sprouted wheat are also on offer and — for certain buyers — feed paddy auctions are also scheduled to return. Market participants expect to see 8-9 rounds of paddy reserve sales in August-September, with a combined 16mn-18mn t sold, as China attempts to bridge a domestic corn shortage before harvesting of new-crop corn starts in mid-to-late September.

In the past three years, China has often switched crops and origins to substitute Australian barley in the feed sector, as well as combat rising global prices. China's sorghum imports hit a multi-year high in May 2022 with large volumes of sorghum arriving from Australia.

Australia was once China's largest barley supplier and accounted for about 40pc of it's imported crops in 2019, according to Chinese customs data.

The reopened trade flow could also create ripples in markets further afield. Competition from Australia could push French barley sellers away from China and towards Spain, Algeria and Morocco. This would make it harder for French barley to keep its premium to other EU and Black Sea origins, which have in contrast always been locked out of the Chinese market due to customs restrictions.

Meanwhile, Australian barley flows to China would divert supply away from its current key markets in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. This could give Argentina a chance to regain the market share it once held in these regions, as around 20pc of Argentina's barley exports were destined for Saudi Arabia, on average, in 2015-20.


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