China Stops Issuing Import Permits for US Distillers Grains
China has stopped issuing permits for imports of distillers dried grains (DDGs) from top exporter the United States on concerns they might contain an unapproved genetically-modified organism (GMO), traders said, sending U.S. prices tumbling. Quarantine authorities have also asked buyers to re-export earlier shipments that contained MIR 162, a GMO strain developed by Syngenta AG that has not been approved for import by China's agriculture ministry. Qingdao, China's largest port for DDGs, stopped issuing new permits for shipments last month to any buyers who had still not shipped out any cargoes previously denied entry by quarantine authorities. "Now it is countrywide. Quarantine authorities stopped issuing import permits last Friday," said one trading manager with a major buyer.
Vietnam Pledged Tough Measures To Quell Anti Chinese Protests
Vietnam pledged on Saturday to quell any outbreak of violence after protests against Beijing this week devastated key industrial centers, due to discontent with the Asian giant oil drilling in a disputed area in the South China Sea South. The principal investigator of the Vietnamese police defended the security forces, accused of failing to control disorder and said "illegal acts" will not tolerate a day before planned protests against China in its major cities. Hoang Kong Tu said to the media that the authorities would apply the full force of the law and that the violence Tuesday and Wednesday would not be repeated, when groups of protesters attacked industrial parks in three provinces vital for the economy and exports Vietnamese.
Chinese Soy Project in Brazil: Just an Empty Field
No signs identify a barren field in northeastern Brazil that was meant to be the center of one of China's most ambitious agricultural forays into South America. In 2011, Chongqing Grain Group Corp announced plans to build a soy crushing plant, railways and a giant inland storage and transportation hub to export goods back to China. The total price tag: $2 billion. Yet today, the company has only managed to bulldoze a 100-hectare area on which the crushing plant might one day stand. Even that project is on hold, though, and shrubs are starting to grow back on the cleared terrain. The stalled plans are an example of the difficulties facing once-promising Chinese investments here.
