A Global Times (February 24) article said that while the conflict in Ukraine will affect
agricultural trade and push prices up, the impact on China will be limited. The detailed article
said global corn and wheat prices will go up higher and affect China's agricultural imports from
the country, which supplies around 30 percent of China's corn imports. It added that certain
trade between China and Ukraine may also be affected, with some companies making light
industrial goods trade in China saying that they have already seen significant drop in export
orders to Ukraine and traders are concerned over logistics and other issues. It noted that global
market prices had soared and Chinese corn prices also skyrocketed 36.84 percent to 2,600 yuan
($411.29) per ton. The article said Ukraine was also China's largest corn supplier from 2015 to
2020, after corn trade between the two countries started in 2013. The portion of Ukrainian corn
in China's total imports remained above 60 percent during that period. But after China increased
corn imports from the US starting from 2020, China's corn imports from Ukraine accounted
for only 29.07 percent out of all Chinese corn imports. Still, the import volume kept rising and
reached a record high in 2021 at 8.24 million tons. It added that China has imported a large
amount of corn, wheat, and barley for feed processing as domestic corn prices have surged.
Quoting Liu Dong, a senior analyst specializing in corn at the Mysteel consultancy, it said "As
corn supplies from Ukraine only accounted for 2.55 percent of China's total corn consumption, the tensions in Ukraine will only have a limited impact on China's corn imports. Moreover,
China could hike imports from [other sources] to meet domestic demand." Observing that "The
global corn price is skyrocketing, which makes it lose its price edge over homegrown corn. So
Chinese buyers will turn to domestic corn, or seek import alternatives such as sorghum and
barley," Jiao Shanwei, editor-in-chief of industry news website cngrain.com, told the Global
Times that the impact on China's grain security is "controllable" as China has achieved selfsufficiency in corn. However, Zhu Qiucheng, CEO of Ningbo New Oriental Electric Industrial
Development, told the Global Times that "The Russia-Ukraine [situation] may halt the fullyear trade of light industrial products in the province. All aspects will be disrupted, such as
traffic suspension," and some traders are also worried about potential payment problems
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