Chinese customs officials said on Monday that they had approved the import of rapeseed meal from Kazakhstan in an effort to diversify the sources of animal feed protein.
After the outbreak of the US-China trade war this year, China has tried to reduce its dependence on US soybeans. It has been reported that China has recently lifted the ban on the import of rapeseed meal from India.
However, Shanghai Huiyi analysts pointed out that the approval of the import of Kazakhstan rapeseed meal had little overall impact on the market, because the country's export potential was very limited. In 2017/18, Kazakhstan produced only 85,000 tons of rapeseed meal.
In 2017, nearly 1 million tons of rapeseed meal were imported from Canada. In addition, China has imported nearly 4.5 million tons of Canadian rapeseed for domestic pressing. However, most of these are shipped to South China Port.
Analysts said that for the north of China, importing Kazakhstan rapeseed meal could be a useful supplement to importing a small amount of rapeseed from Mongolia and Russia.
Last month, China approved the import of barley and corn from Kazakhstan.
