COFCO Group, China's largest food trader in terms of sales revenue, has inked agreements with global suppliers to import more than $10 billion worth of agricultural products at the ongoing sixth China International Import Expo in Shanghai.

中粮集团是中国销售收入最大的食品贸易商，已与全球供应商签署协议，在正在上海举行的第六届中国国际进口博览会上进口价值超过100亿美元的农产品。

COFCO Group, China's largest foodstuff producer and grain trader by sales revenue, has signed over $10 billion worth of purchase contracts with various foreign partners during the fifth China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, the company said on Sunday.

中粮集团周日表示，在上海举行的第五届中国国际进口博览会期间，中粮集团与多家外国合作伙伴签署了价值超过100亿美元的采购合同。中粮集团是中国销售收入最大的食品生产商和粮食贸易商。

Owning 16 listed companies, including nine listed on the Hong Kong bourse, COFCO Corp, the country's largest foodstuff producer and grain trader by sales revenue, has been actively introducing social capital and multiple shareholders to its listed companies to further enhance industrial competitiveness in recent years, the Beijing-based central SOE said in a statement on Wednesday.

总部位于北京的中央国有企业周三在一份声明中表示，中国销售收入最大的食品生产商和粮食贸易商中粮集团拥有16家上市公司，其中包括9家在香港交易所上市的公司，近年来一直在积极向其上市公司引入社会资本和多个股东，以进一步提高行业竞争力。

SASAC: Business integration key task for SOEs to focus on main operationsChina's largest food processor and trader COFCO and China Grain Reserves Group Ltd will integrate part of their businesses and establish two joint ventures, the nation's top State asset regulator said in a recent release this week.

国资委：业务整合是国有企业聚焦主营业务的关键任务中国最高国有资产监管机构本周在最近的一份新闻稿中表示，中国最大的食品加工和贸易商中粮集团和中储粮集团有限公司将整合部分业务，成立两家合资企业。

China's biggest food trader COFCO has seen its revenue exceed 500 billion yuan ($77.27 billion) in 2020, a historic high despite the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Archer Daniels Midland Co, or ADM, a United States-based grain trader and processor, is setting up a raw-food material plant in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, next year to supply raw materials and other products to the Asia-Pacific market, according to a senior executive.

Agricultural produce trader's expansion into value-added areas to be gradual before 2025Louis Dreyfus Co, one of the world's major agricultural goods traders and processors by sales revenue, will invest $300 million in China gradually before 2025 to move further downstream into more value-added areas, said its senior executives.

COFCO Corp, China's largest foodstuff producer and grain trader by sales revenue, mobilized its global and domestic resources to deliver urgently needed medical, food and other materials on time to ensure people's livelihoods were protected during the outbreak, said Yu Xubo, president of the Beijing-headquartered group.

Guangdong, China's biggest foreign trader for decades, witnessed an import and export trade volume reduction of 15.2 percent due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus in the first two months this year, the statement said.

COFCO Group, China's leading foodstuff producer and grain trader, will consolidate its partnerships with other centrally-administrated State-owned enterprises to deliver urgently needed materials on time to fight the novel coronavirus, a senior executive said.

COFCO International, the Geneva-based global trading arm of China's biggest food and agricultural company, said Wednesday the $2.1-billion credit it has just signed for is the biggest sustainability-linked loan for a commodity trader.

A passion for classical antique Chinese furniture learned from his family inspired Hong Kong trader Andy Hei to establish the Fine Art Asia fair, which has now become an important date on the calendar for enthusiasts worldwide.

"In June last year, the bulk commodity firm acquired a 51 percent stake in Granite Capital, a subsidiary of Integra, a Singapore-headquartered petrochemical commodity trader.

COFCO International Ltd, a subsidiary of COFCO Group, China's largest food trader, announced on Thursday its partnership with what are known as the ABCD companies, to standardize and digitize global agricultural shipping transactions.

"Thaiseer, China market head of Steel Giant, a commodities trader that imports ores into China and exports products to the Middle East, said the firm is seeking to diversify and might fund a city-centric weather forecast app and a truck ride-sharing logistics app.

Global agricultural goods trader Louis Dreyfus Co opened a new oilseed processing plant in Tianjin to further enhance its market presence in the country.

COFCO Fortune Holdings Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of China's largest food producer, manufacturer and trader COFCO Group, announced wide-ranging cooperation with the most popular food documentary A Bite of China in Beijing on Friday.

Harley-Davidson is the latest example of how businesses are finding themselves in the crosshairs amid brewing trade fights between the US and its major trader partners.

The past four decades since China opened its doors saw a transformed China that has grown into the world's second-largest economy, the largest producer of industrial output, the largest trader in goods and the largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, lifting more than 700 million people out of poverty.

Unipec Singapore Pte Ltd, a trading unit of Sinopec, said it imported 5.57 million tons of crude oil from the US in 2017, 10 percent of the total US crude oil export last year, which also makes the company the biggest US crude oil trader in the Asia-Pacific region and a major player in US crude oil trade.

With advantages in infrastructure layout including warehouse logistics, Sinopec became the first trader to import US crude in the Asia-Pacific region after shipping the first batch of US crude to China in March 2016.

State-owned China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corp, also known as COFCO, has set a goal of becoming the largest food trader in the world by 2020 to rival global giants, according to its top executive.

"We aim to become the largest international food trader by 2020, not only in assets we own and revenues we make, but also in the quality of our assets, business operation, and return on investment," said Yu Xubo, president of COFCO.

In stages, it has taken full control of Nidera BV, a Dutch grain trader, and Noble Agri Ltd, the soft commodities business of Noble Group, which gave it access to grain, oilseed and sugar in Brazil and Argentina, as well as in Europe and Australia.

Commodities trader and miner Glencore replaced China's Sinopec as the buyer of Chevron's South African and Botswana assets in October, including a 100,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery in Cape Town, a lubricants plant in Durban as well as 820 petrol stations and other oil storage facilities.

[Photo/for China Daily]In the middle of London's Camden Market, a trader from China hands red-bean cakes to a group of tourists from Sweden, as tattooed locals dressed in black leather weave their way between food stalls cooking up dishes, including barbecued meat and fish and chips.

Earlier this month, COFCO International, COFCO's overseas investment and management platform, has agreed to sell the seed business of grain trader Nidera BV to agribusiness giant Syngenta AG.

[Photo/IC]COFCO Corp, China's biggest foodstuff conglomerate by revenue, announced its overseas investment and management platform COFCO International has agreed to sell seed business of grain trader Nidera BV to agribusiness giant Syngenta AG on Monday.

COFCO International had completed a full takeover of the Netherlands-based grain trader in February this year.

In 2015, President of COFCO Corp Yu Xubo said COFCO International was integrating its own business with Nidera and commodities trader Noble Group, and expected to complete their assets integration in five years to promote COFCO International to list on stock markets in 2019.

With US-China energy trade likely to feature prominently during Trump's visit, the people said one of the projects could see Sinopec partnering with US commodities trader Freepoint Commodities and US private equity firm ArcLight Capital Partners.

[Zhu Yuanli/for China Daily]China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corp － the country's biggest food trader by sales revenue, on Monday confirmed that COFCO International Ltd, one of its subsidiaries, has formed a grain supply partnership with the Illinois-based farm cooperative Growmark Inc.

This also is the latest expansion move by COFCO International since it invested $3 billion to buy Noble Group's agribusiness and a large stake in Dutch grain trader Nidera BV in deals that bolstered its position in the global grain market.

China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corp, the country's biggest food trader by revenue, will accelerate its pace of building warehouses and logistics facilities in the world's major grain-producing regions this year, said a senior executive on Wednesday.

"Since its accession to the WTO more than 20 years ago, China has become the world's largest trader of goods and a major trading partner for over 140 countries and regions, contributing an average of nearly 30 percent to the world's annual economic growth.

China, on top of effective implementation of existing policies aimed at stabilizing foreign trade, will explore and introduce new measures should the shifting dynamics call for it, as part of its efforts to turn the country into a trader of quality, said Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

"Guangdong's foreign trade volume represented 19.9 percent of the country's total last year, continuing to be the biggest foreign trader of the country," he said.

China will make dedicated efforts to turn the country into a trader of quality, as part of its efforts to achieve Chinese modernization, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said on Tuesday in Beijing.

With global trade forecast to underperform in 2023 and cross-border capital flow fluctuations drawing widespread concern, China is fostering new drivers to consolidate its status as a leading trader as well as a favored destination for foreign investors.

In the face of these challenges, China, the world's second-largest economy and the biggest goods trader, has been striving to tap into new trade potential.

Muhammad Ashfaque, a trader of clothes and dry fruit in the provincial capital city of Peshawar, said that before CPEC, it took him hours to reach cities within the province and the country's north Gilgit-Baltistan region, but now his business has doubled as he can access new markets.

Noting that the agricultural sectors of China and the US are highly complementary, Xiong Haochen, vice-president of government relations in the Asia-Pacific region of Archer-Daniels-Midland Co, a US grain trader and processor, said the two nations stand as important trading partners for each other.

Meanwhile, Guangdong, China's biggest foreign trader, witnessed major year-on-year growth in imports of daily living products and important raw production materials between January and August.

Lyu Jun, board chairman of COFCO Group, China's largest food trader in terms of sales revenue, said the company will continue to import agricultural products from other BRICS countries in the coming years, since agriculture is one of the key areas of cooperation between China and these four trading partners.

Zhu Linbo, president for China at Archer-Daniels-Midland Co, a United States-based grain trader and processor, said that with a series of supportive policies being unveiled and gradually taking effect, the group is confident about China's economic vitality and development prospects.

Last month, the southern province, China's biggest foreign trader, sold 447.26 billion yuan worth of products abroad, up year-on-year 0.4 percent, while purchasing goods valued at 247.02 billion yuan from the rest of the world, a year-on-year reduction of 0.4 percent, the statement said.

As the world's second-largest economy, biggest trader in goods, second-largest outbound direct investor, largest holder of foreign exchange reserves and biggest tourism market, China has been a crucial player in global geopolitical and economic system.

The province, which has been the country's biggest foreign trader for decades, continues to leverage foreign trade to drive its overall sustainable economic growth.

It is the first time the province, the country's biggest foreign trader, reached more than 2.5 trillion yuan in export volume in six months, a statement from Guangdong Customs said.

Guangdong, China's biggest foreign trader, sold 1.68 trillion yuan of products abroad, up year-on-year 5.4 percent, while it purchased goods valued at 841.5 billion yuan from the rest of the world, a year-on-year reduction of 10.9 percent, in the first four months, the statement said.

In a recent article published in Qiushi Journal, a flagship magazine of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, called for efforts to give full play to the supporting role played by exports in the economy, and for the transformation of China into quality trader to be accelerated.

The increasingly convenient transportation and logistics network allows more ASEAN commodities to enter China and share market opportunities," said Nisachol Thaithong, a Thai trader.

It grew more than 6 percent annually on average — 3 percentage points more than the global growth rate — helping China to extend its position as the world's second-largest trader in services for nine consecutive years.

We expect China will build itself into a trader of quality, cultivate new growth points for international economic and trade cooperation, and participate in the global industrial division of labor and cooperation at a higher level and on a larger scale.

The southern province which has been the country's biggest foreign trader for decades reached a foreign trade volume of more than 499.54 billion yuan ($74.56 billion) in February, up year-on-year by 4 percent.

China's goods trade surged 7.7 percent year-on-year to a record 42.07 trillion yuan ($6.26 trillion) in 2022, making the country the world's largest trader in goods for the sixth successive year, said the General Administration of Customs.

Besides, the country for the first time saw its total foreign trade exceed 40 trillion yuan ($5.97 trillion), and maintained the world's largest trader in goods for six years in a row.

Their comments came as the General Administration of Customs said on Friday that despite multiple negative factors, China's goods trade surged 7.7 percent year-on-year to a record 42.07 trillion yuan ($6.26 trillion) last year, making the country the world's largest trader in goods for the sixth successive year.

According to the GAC, China has remained the largest trader in goods throughout the world for six successive years.

The first bulk vessel carrying 68,000 metric tons of Brazilian corn to China arrived at a port in Dongguan, Guangdong province, on Saturday, marking the establishment of a new corridor for the South American country to export corn to the Chinese market, according to a statement released by COFCO Corp, the country's largest grain trader and foodstuff producer by sales revenue.

ASEAN, the United States, the EU, Hong Kong and Taiwan are traditionally the top five trading partners of Guangdong, which is China's biggest foreign trader.

The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, delivered on Oct 16 in Beijing, has pointed out in particular that the nation "will upgrade trade in goods, develop new mechanisms for trade in services and promote digital trade, in order to accelerate China's transformation into a trader of quality.

Policies and measures should also be formulated to accelerate the transformation of China from a trader of quantity to a trader of quality, he said.

Nepalese trader hails event for improving his life, giving him chance to pay it forwardJust four years ago, Shankar Koirala could be considered somewhat of an itinerant merchant who would peddle traditional Nepalese handicrafts at trade fairs around the world.

Guangdong province, China's biggest foreign trader, mainly exported new energy products while purchasing mainly agricultural products from around the world in the first 10 months of the year.

According to the report delivered by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, at the 20th CPC National Congress, the country will promote high-standard opening-up, steadily expand institutional opening-up with regard to rules, regulations, management and standards, and accelerate its transformation into a trader of quality.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, China's status as a major trading country has been further consolidated, laying a solid foundation for moving faster to turn the country into a trader of quality.

In the past decade, China has maintained its status as the world's top trader in goods for five consecutive years since 2017; in contrast, although trade in services has been the second-largest in the world for eight consecutive years in scale and has increasingly become a new engine for China's development of foreign trade, the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development remains prominent.

In order to achieve the services trade development goals listed in the five-year plan and accelerate the country's transformation into a trader of quality, it is necessary to continue to deepen the reform of the services sector in the following aspects.

It also said efforts will be made to accelerate the country's transformation into a trader of quality, promote the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative, and preserve the diversity and stability of the international economic landscape and economic and trade relations.

The good foreign trade performance with major trade partners (Hong Kong as an exception) has helped Guangdong, the country's biggest foreign trader, reach a total foreign trade volume of more than 6.1 trillion yuan in the first nine months this year, up year-on-year 1.3 percent.

ASEAN, the United States, the EU, Hong Kong and Taiwan are traditionally the top five trading partners of Guangdong province, which is China's biggest foreign trader.

Meanwhile, Guangdong, the country's top foreign trader, reached a two-way trade volume of 3.91 trillion yuan from January to June, up 2.8 percent year-on-year, local Customs said in a statement on Tuesday.

Jeremy Weir, chief executive of the commodity trader Trafigura, said it was highly probable that oil prices could rise to $150 a barrel or higher in the coming months, with supply chains strained as Russia tries to redirect its oil exports away from Europe.

Sustainable foreign trade growth has helped Guangdong, China's biggest foreign trader, achieve a foreign trade volume of more than 2.54 trillion yuan ($396.88 billion) in the first four months of this year, up year-on-year by 1.6 percent.

Among the many that continue to benefit from TAZARA train services is Agnes Mumba, 42, a cross-border trader based in Kasama, the provincial capital of Zambia's Northern province.

Mumba trades in household goods and clothing and has been using TAZARA trains for all the 15 years that she has been a cross-border trader.

Guangdong, the country's biggest foreign trader, sold 789.23 billion yuan worth of products abroad in the first two months, a year-on-year increase of 4.8 percent, while purchasing goods valued at 450.18 billion yuan from foreign nations and regions, up year-on-year by 4.2 percent.

For the past 10 years, China has remained the world's second-largest import market, and for the past five years, China has remained the world's largest trader in goods.

And for the past 5 years, China has remained the world's largest trader in goods.

Russell Hardy, chief executive of Vitol, a major trader in oil and petroleum products and owner of energy assets, was quoted by oilprice.

For John Yu, general manager of Vitabeez, an agricultural produce trader based in New Zealand, the start of 2022 brought even more glad tidings.

Guangdong province, China's biggest foreign trader, reported an import and export volume of more than 7.47 trillion yuan ($1.17 trillion) in the first 11 months of the year, bucking the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and surpassing the 7.09 trillion yuan recorded in the whole of 2020, a statement released by Guangdong Customs said on Monday.

The figure represented a year-on-year growth of 17.4 percent and accounted for 21.1 percent of the country's total, fortifying Guangdong's status as China's largest foreign trader, the statement said.

The strong import performance has helped Guangdong, one of the major production bases of the world, achieve an import and export volume of more than 7.09 trillion yuan last year, fortifying its status as China's biggest foreign trader, the statement said.

The company, based in Nanning, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, is an agricultural trader focused on ASEAN products.

The sustainable foreign trade growth with major trade partners this year has helped Guangdong, China's biggest foreign trader, achieve a foreign trade volume of more than 6.71 trillion yuan in the first 10 months, up year-on-year by 18.2 percent and accounting for 21.2 percent of the country's total, the statement said.

Dan Dicker, a longtime energy trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange, media commentator and founder of The Energy Word newsletter, said, "For those (oil-producing) players that are left, like OPEC and Russia, and the majors here in the United States, they've got no appetite to ramp up more because they lost money for six years.

He said the hub has helped one Afghan carpet trader receive orders for the products produced by 1,500 households in Afghanistan.

They include US agricultural and food company Cargill Inc, US agribusiness company Syngenta, China's biggest food trader COFCO Group, Chinese company Beidahuang Group Co Ltd, New Hope Group and Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd. During the upcoming expo, government officials, business leaders and industry experts will discuss issues about agricultural modernization and prospects of international agricultural cooperation in the countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

The good performance in August helped Guangdong, the country's biggest foreign trader and a major production base, reach a total volume of 5.24 trillion yuan in the first eight months of the year, up year-on-year by 19.6 percent — 21.1 percent of national trade.

Out of the original 3,000 sets of furniture, only 1,000 sets were shipped, with many still in the warehouse because the shipping charges were too expensive, said Zhong Duming, Guangdong Foshan furniture trader.

The province, China's biggest external trader, sold 397.79 billion yuan worth of products abroad while purchasing foreign products valued at 273.8 billion yuan last month, up year-on-year by 23.1 percent and 21.4 percent, respectively.

According to statistics released by Guangdong customs on Monday, the province, the country's biggest foreign trader, sold more than 1.12 trillion yuan worth of products abroad, up 41.6 percent year-on-year.

"China has continued to deepen reform and opening-up, creating a fairer and better business environment for multinational companies operating in China, prompting us to import more agricultural products and solutions into the country faster," said Leo Liu, president for the Asia-Pacific region at Archer Daniels Midland Co, or ADM, a US-based grain trader and processor.

Guangdong province, China's biggest foreign trader, recorded an import/export volume of more than 7 trillion yuan ($1.08 trillion) for 2020 after the province set a record for exports, according to the Guangdong Customs on Wednesday.

Larry Benedict, CEO and founder of The Opportunistic Trader, a US market research firm, told Xinhua that for the fate of additional US fiscal stimulus, "US positioning and reaction to what we would consider a new world," and "whether or not the vaccine is as effective as we think it is," among others, are major catalysts.

As China has been working with other countries to make economic globalization more inclusive and balanced to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, its promotion of the "dual-circulation" development paradigm will prove timely, said Lyu Jun, chairman of COFCO Group, China's largest foodstuff producer and grain trader by sales revenue.

And customs in the entire province, the country's biggest foreign trader, inspected and released 9.28 million import online shopping bills and another 38.11 million export bills between the beginning of November and 8 am Wednesday, with a value of 2.82 billion yuan and 5.71 billion yuan, respectively, and increasing year-on-year by 72.08 percent and 22.19 percent, respectively, the statement said.

Wang said China, as the world's largest producer, consumer and trader of mineral products, has consistently pushed for green and safe mining, reformed policies for the improvement of the mining sector and promoted global collaboration in the sector for a win-win future.