Marubeni Corp. (8002), Japan’s biggest agricultural trader, sees China’s demand for imported corn rising almost fourfold within a decade as the company seeks to raise its share to 20 percent.
With the $2.7 billion purchase of the third-largest U.S. grain merchandiser Gavilon Group LLC this month, Marubeni has increased its corn supply and will use that to boost Chinese exports, said Daisuke Okada, a managing executive officer at the Tokyo-based trading company. Marubeni already supplies about 20 percent of China’s soybean imports, he said.
“I’d like to have our market share at 20 percent, that’s the figure we want to see in all the countries we sell in,” Okada said at a briefing recently. “China’s demand for coal, metals and so on is weakening but there’s no stopping of growth for grains.”
China bought a record 5.23 million tons of corn in the marketing year ended Sept. 30, according to the USDA.
Buying Gavilon has given Marubeni access to 144 American grain collection and storage facilities, as well as trading and sourcing relationships with producers in Australia, Ukraine and Brazil, among others. Together with Marubeni’s current assets, the trader will handle 55 million tons of grain annually.