Nation to import more soybeans, palm oil

CHINA, the world’s biggest vegetable oil consumer, will import more soybeans and palm oil to meet growing demand after local farmers reduced oilseed plantings, bolstering prices that have risen by half this year.

China’s imports would account for 45 percent of international soybean trade volume in the year to Sept. 30, 2008, Wang Yinji, deputy general manager of Cofco Ltd., said yesterday in Guangzhou. That’s almost twice as much as the 25 percent of trade China’s imports accounted for seven years ago.

China Metallurgical wins Afghan mine

CHINA Metallurgical Group Corp., the State-owned diversified metal producer, led a group that beat four rivals for the right to develop Afghanistan’s largest copper mine with a US$2.87 billion offer, a company consultant said yesterday.

Under China Metallurgical’s plan, the Aynak mine would produce 200,000 metric tons of refined copper a year, Eddie Hedayat Azizi, the company’s consultant on the bid, said Kabul. Construction on the mine, located southeast of the capital, may start in six months to a year, he said.

U.S. panel nixes paper duties

THE U.S. International Trade Commission yesterday struck down proposed duties on glossy paper imports from China in a landmark case that had prompted the U.S. Commerce Department to change a decades-old policy.