US-origin soybean exports in the 2018-19 marketing year (September-August) was seen down 4% on May estimate to 46.26 million mt due to the ongoing of US-China trade dispute, according to the US Department of Agriculture. For the week ending May 30, US 2018-19 soybean export commitments (outstanding sales plus accumulated exports) to China totaled 13.6 million mt, down 53% year on year, USDA data showed. US is the world’s second-largest soybean exporter, while China is the biggest soybean importer, accounting for over 60% of global purchases. Last July, China put ...

India’s Adani Enterprises expects to ship first coal from its Australian mine in two years, Adani Mining Chief Executive Lucas Dow said on Thursday, after the company won the green light to start construction on the long delayed project. “The construction period for the mine and rail project is two years. You could be thinking from today in two years’ time people should be expecting we have exported our first piece of coal,” Dow told reporters. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Sonali Paul; editing by Richard Pullin)

Iraq is still holding discussions over possible wheat imports with Russia and it could be months before any outcome is known, Iraq’s deputy trade minister said. “Up until now we cannot say whether we will take or not – it depends on the results,” Haitham Jameel Ismail al-Khshali said. Al-Khshali said a technical group of Iraqi specialists was looking into the issue. “It will take some time … maybe a few months,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of an International Grains Council conference in London. Iraq, which sources its ...

Vietnam imported 3.86 million mt of coal in May, comprising mainly thermal coal and coking coal, surging 57.1% from the same month in 2018, according to preliminary data released by Vietnam Customs. The import value in the month was $380 million, up 51.4% year on year. Indonesia was the biggest supplier of coal in the month with 1.39 million mt, up 8.2% year on year, followed by Australia, Russia and China. Between January and May, Vietnam imported 17.20 million mt of coal, rising 103.8% from a year earlier, mostly from ...

A top U.S. commodities regulator said on Wednesday climate change poses a major market risk and urged federal government action to address it, putting him at odds with the Trump administration which has often dismissed the issue. Rostin Behnam, one of five commissioners of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, made the comments at a public meeting focused on financial risks. He said he will form a special committee tasked with writing a report later this year examining the threats and proposing action. “The impacts of climate change affect every aspect ...

Global oil prices could fall to as low as $45 per barrel if tensions between the U.S. and China worsen, an investment strategist told CNBC. Oil prices have been on a downward trend in recent weeks as investors become increasingly concerned about slowing demand. Appetite for oil is at risk of a further slump if the U.S. and China fail to the resolve trade differences, which will cause the global economy to weaken even more, said Rainer Michael Preiss, executive director at Taurus Wealth Advisors. “I think a lot of ...

From winter storms to spring floods, severe weather this year in the US Midwest has kept farmers from planting crops, cutting regional diesel demand as a result. But even with prices at multi-month lows, the market is unlikely to quickly to reverse course due not only to high stocks of diesel and jet fuel, but because farmers will be unable to plant as much or as quickly. “Although some additional acreage will be planted in the next few weeks, it is now clear that a significant amount of corn acreage ...

From winter storms to spring floods, severe weather this year in the US Midwest has kept farmers from planting crops, cutting regional diesel demand as a result. But even with prices at multi-month lows, the market is unlikely to quickly to reverse course due not only to high stocks of diesel and jet fuel, but because farmers will be unable to plant as much or as quickly. “Although some additional acreage will be planted in the next few weeks, it is now clear that a significant amount of corn acreage ...

The U.S. dollar was little changed against the euro on Thursday as investors were reluctant to take large positions before next week’s Federal Reserve meeting and the G20 summit in Japan later this month. Tepid inflation and weakening economic data in the midst of a U.S.-China trade war has fed expectations that the Federal Reserve is close to cutting interest rates. That has brought the U.S. dollar down from two-year highs reached in May, yet investors are reluctant to get too bearish on the greenback without further confirmation that rate ...

US President Donald Trump has used national security as a justification for his tariffs on steel imports, his threatened tariff hikes on automobiles and the tariffs he recently vowed to impose on Mexican imports. “If you don’t have steel, you don’t have a country,” he tweeted, to cite just one example. While Trump’s national security claim seems absurd on the face of it, it raises difficult questions for the world trade regime and global economic governance more broadly. The critical challenge of global governance is determining the dividing line between ...

In the latest chapter of turbulent ties between Mexico and the United States, U.S. President Donald Trump proved to be a rash decision-maker who uses trade sanctions to score electoral points, despite its impact on the global economy, observers have said. “Partners don’t treat their counterparts like this,” Adolfo Laborde, an expert in international relations at Mexico City’s Anahuac University, told Xinhua, referring to repeated U.S. threats to slap punitive tariffs on Mexican imports unless Mexico stems the flow of undocumented migrants heading to the U.S. border. “Such tariffs could ...

Following the transportation industry is one way to judge how the economy is doing. Trucks and railroads pretty much move all the goods and raw materials that are sold or used in the United States. That is one reason investors keep an eye on the Dow Jones Transportation Index to get a feeling for how the economy is performing. Neither railroad traffic nor the Index are doing well recently. The underlying economy is weaker than perceived when you look at March quarter’s GDP numbers and the recent employment report. And ...

As central banks show increasing alarm about the world economy and a willingness to increase stimulus, finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations made little progress in curing the main threat of deepening trade tensions. Talks in the port city of Fukuoka, Japan, opened with some rare good news as President Donald Trump reversed his plans to hit Mexico with tariffs. But the U.S.-China impasse showed no signs of easing, which officials recognized in their concluding statement by noting that trade tensions have “intensified.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ...

Italy, a high-debt and low growth country, should focus on structural reforms that boost productivity and keep a fiscal policy that maintains investor confidence, the head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde said. “Any reforms that will boost productivity will be critically important. That’s number one. Number two: a fiscal path that will actually maintain the confidence of investors will be critical as well,” she told a news conference. Asked about the Italian idea of introducing a parallel currency in the form of mini-bonds to pay off government arrears, ...

The composite index decreased 1.4% this week, also, 4.4% down as compared with same period of 2018. The average composite index of the WCI, assessed by Drewry for year-to-date, is US $1,475 per 40ft container, which is $15 higher than the five-year average of $1,459 per 40ft container. Drewry’s composite World Container Index (WCI) decreased 1.4% to $1351.15 for a 40ft container. Freight rates on Shanghai-Rotterdam plummeted $52 and stood at $1,487 for a 40ft box. Rates on Shanghai-Los Angeles dropped $40 to $1,412 per feu. Similarly, freight rates from ...