Argentina's agricultural report highlights China's importance

Argentina's main agricultural export platform, the Chamber of Commerce of Rosario, highlighted on Thursday the importance of China as an agricultural partner.

In a report, Julio Calzada, head of economic studies and information of the chamber of commerce, said "we have detected a series of positive indicators for the Argentinean economy...stemming from our commercial relationship with China, especially their imports of agricultural products and soybeans."

"China takes up 65 percent of the global trade of soybeans and its main suppliers are Brazil, the United States and Argentina," he added.

According to the report, China bought 81.7 million tons of soybeans and 820,000 tons of soybean oil in 2015. Argentina provided around 11.5 percent of Chinese soybean imports with 9.4 million tons, and 63 percent of its purchase of soybean oil.

Chinese imports from the United States, Brazil and Argentina grew by 14 percent in 2015, capping "a remarkable growth of 55 percent over the last four years," the report said.

"China is a central actor and key to the future of the international soybean market and its derivatives," the chamber of commerce in its report.

"The interesting thing is that bilateral trade between Argentina and China is highly complementary. Chinese exports to our country are almost entirely non-agricultural while its imports from Argentina are highly concentrated on agricultural products," the report concluded. Endi