China signs $6.68 billion of U.S. soybean deals

China, the world's biggest soybean importer and consumer, has signed 21 purchasing agreements in Chicago over the past two days for U.S. supplies valued at $6.68 billion, the U.S. Soybean Export Council said.

The deals include 11 agreements signed today valued at $4.8 billion, Paul Burke, the council's director of global marketing, said in an interview. The agreements signed over the past two days involved 11.5 million metric tons, or 423 million bushels, Burke said. The agreements were with companies including Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Ltd. and Cargill Inc.

"This is the result of promotional activities in China to promote soybean-meal demand, to sustain demand and build up the preference for U.S. soybeans," Xiaoping Zhang, the acting China country director for the American Soybean Association, a trade group, said in an interview in Chicago. Zhang is based in Beijing.

Soybean prices have jumped 48 percent in the past year on the Chicago Board of Trade, partly as Chinese demand for U.S. imports surged. On Jan. 13, the price reached $14.325 a bushel, the highest since July 2008, after the U.S. government forecast declining global inventories. Soybean futures for March delivery fell 2 cents, or 0.1 percent, to close today at $14.1225.

"China continues to be a significant factor for determining the price that U.S. soybean farmers will receive for their crop," Burke said.

The oilseed has climbed 34 percent in 2010, the most since 2007.

"The soybean prices are very high right now," Jim Call, the international marketing chairman of the United Soybean Board, a trade group, said in an interview in Chicago. "Everybody thinks prices stop demand, but that's not the case."