September 12, 2013
Taiwan to buy US$1.8 billion US corn, DDGS in 2014-15
Over the next two years, Taiwan will buy5 million tonnes of US corn and 500,000 tonnes of distillers dried grains (DDGS).
According to the US Grains Council (USGC), which promotes US grainin foreign markets, the value of the corn products was estimated at US$1.8 billion.
A letter of intent was signed by the Taiwan Feed Industry Association on behalf of the Taiwanese Agricultural Goodwill Mission.
The total value of all agreements signed on Tuesday (Sep 10), including letters of intent to buy US soy and wheat, was estimated at US$4 billion, said USGC spokeswoman Marri Carrow.
Letters of intent are not binding sales contracts but are traditionally honoured by long-time trading partners such as Taiwan and the US, US traders said. The value of the sales is estimated, since the final terms of the deals will be negotiated by private grain companies, they said.
Similar agreements were signed by a trade delegation from Nebraska last week with importers in Taiwan to buy US$400 million of the state's corn, soy and wheat.
Taiwan was the sixth-largest importer of US corn in the 2011-12 (Sep/Aug) season, the third-largest US barley importer and the seventh-largest US sorghum importer.