The outbreak of swine flu in Mexico triggered underselling of feedstuff in China with soybean products and corn dropping sharply on Monday, as investors worried that the disease might hurt the global hog raising industry and exporters.

The swine flu was the main reason for the market underselling on Monday, said Huang Yinyan, an analyst with Zhejiang-based Nanhua Futures.

Huang added that how much the outbreak would affect the futures market depended on the further development of the swine flu prevention and treatment.

Soybean meal for September delivery slumped by its daily limit of 5 percent within 15 minutes of the market opening at 9:00 AM on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange, and failed to climb during the day to close at 2,632 yuan per tonne (US$385.6), down 4.98 percent.

September corn dropped 1.72 percent to close at 1,659 yuan per tonne.

China's Ministry of Commerce last Friday warned domestic firms to slow soybean and rape seed imports so as to avoid possible losses, as the nation has already imported a large amount of these commodities.

From January to last week, China imported 14 million tonnes of soybeans, up 40 percent year on year, and 900,000 tonnes of rape seed, up 120 percent, setting a new high, said the ministry, without giving the specific reasons.

As a result of the warning, rape-seed oil contracts slumped on Monday, with the major contracts dropping 4.56 percent to 7,108 yuan per tonne.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2009)