Summary: On 5 Feb., the agreements on health and quarantine requirements
for corn and beet pulp exported from Serbia to China were signed, signifying
the further open-up of China's import of agricultural products.
On 5 Feb., China Customs and representatives of Serbia signed the Agreement
on Health and Botanical Health Requirements for Beet Pulp from Serbia to China,
the Agreement on Botanical Quarantine Requirements for Corn
Exported from Serbia to China and the Agreement on Mutual
Recognition of Enterprise Credit Management System of China Customs and
Authorized Operator system of Serbia Customs, which are expected to further
open up China's market, and to ease the domestic reliance on corns from Ukraine
and the US.
At present, no sign of drop is seen in corn price in China. The average
price of corn in Jan. in China was USD418.91/t , 9.50% or USD36.33/t higher
than that of last month, and 60.94% higher over last year. Due to the high
price, dramatically growth was seen in corn import in China. In Dec., 2020,
China imported 2.25 million tonnes of corn, with a value of USD523 million, a
MoM increase of 83% and 82% respectively and a YoY increase of 207% and 211%
respectively, 94.5% of which came from Ukraine and the US, with the import
volume (value) of 1.07 million tonnes (USD245 million) and 1.06 million tonnes
(USD245 million). In 2020, China imported a total of 11.3 million tonnes of
corn, with a value of USD2.49 billion, increasing by 135.7% and 134.5% respectively
compared to last year; and top 3 import origins were Ukraine, the US and
Bulgaria.
Picture Proportion of China's corn import volume from top 3 origins in
2020
Source: CCM & China Customs
Early in 2019, Zhang Jiwen, the deputy director of China Customs, paid a
visit to Serbia, and exchanged the views on exports of corn, pork, dairy and
apple as well as strengthening the cooperation of food safety. According to the
information from the Ministry of Commerce, PRC, Serbia exports a large amount
of agricultural products annually. Corn is one of the country's major exported
products, with a export value of USD551 million in 2019, 58.19% of which was
sold to Romania. In 2020, the total export value of of Serbria's agricultural
products reached USD4.1 billion, with major destinations as the EU and Russia.
Serbria mainly export refined copper to China, which only took 1.68% compared
to the total export value; in 2020, the export value of Serbria to China
reached USD377 million, top 17th in the export market of Serbia.
On 9 Feb., President Xi Jinping announced in the Summit of National
Leaders that China planed to import merchandise valued over USD170 billion from
Central and Eastern Europe (CEEC) in the future 5 years, to speed up the
admission process of agricultural product and food from CEEC, and to strive to
double the import value of agricultural product from CEEC with an increase of
50% in agricultural trade value to each party. He also purposed to build the
wholesale agricultural product market in CEEC with joint cooperation.
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