By Ana Mano
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Chinese state-owned grain trader COFCO is committed to Brazil’s soy-buying moratorium, Allan Virtanen, the company’s global director of communications and sustainability said on Friday, despite pressure from local farmers to make it less rigorous.
Virtanen was addressing a news conference and declined to comment further.
The soy moratorium is a voluntary commitment by global grain traders not to buy soy grown in areas of Amazon deforestation after 2008.
COFCO, one of Brazil’s largest grain exporters, shipped 17 million metric tons of soy and corn from the South American country in 2024.
Sergio Ferreira, COFCO’s director of operations in Brazil, told reporters the company expects to ship 18 million tons of both grains from the country in 2025.
That does not take account of a possible trade war between the United States and China, which could shift more business to Brazil, he told Reuters on the sidelines of the news conference.
Some 80% of COFCO’s grains commodities exports from Brazil go to China, he said.
Executives could not immediately confirm how much grain originates and is exported from the United States, one of Brazil’s main rivals on global grains markets, along with Argentina.
They confirmed, however, most of the grains COFCO exports are from Brazil.
Ferreira said COFCO is on track to start operating a new grain terminal at Port of Santos in Sao Paulo in April.
The new terminal, called STS11, will handle 14.5 million tons of commodities including soybeans, corn, sugar and soymeal per year when fully operational in 2026. The company is investing $285 million to build it.
Reflecting the importance of Brazil for the company’s commodities business, STS11 will be COFCO’s biggest export port terminal in the world, the executives said.
(Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Rod Nickel and Barbara Lewis)
