According to General Administration of Customs, China imported 362,700 tonnes of rapeseed in February 2018, slightly decreasing by 2.7% from January, and by 35.3% as opposed to the same period of last year. So far, imports of rapeseed in the first two months amounted to 735,400 tonnes in year 2018, down 22.9% year on year and total imports in the first nine months of year 2017/18 were around 3,382,100 tonnes, generally up 21.3% from year 2016/17. As a matter of fact, a significant improvement of rapeseed imports was seen during the crop year, which came after the resolved trade conflict in 2016 between China and Canada about different requirements for rapeseed impurities. 

    Import decline of rapeseed in February was much related to holidays during the China’s New year, yet imports later had room to increase factored in good rapeseed crush margins recently. And what is worthy of mentioning was that GMO certificates were still the concerns in domestic market though they exerted little effects on the imports for the time being. Recently, the spokesman of the China’s Ministry of Agriculture, Pan Xianzheng had declared that requirements of the GMO certificates remained unchanged either for the procedures or the time required. That demonstrated that as long as the application materials met those requirements, an GMO certificate was guaranteed and vice versa. 

    According to customs data, China imported 63,700 tonnes of rapeseed meal at ports in February 2018, impressively down 48.6% from 124,000 tonnes in January, but slightly down 1.73% on a year-on-year basis. So far, imports of rapeseed meal in the first two months amounted to 188,000 tonnes in year 2018, up 29.7% from 145,000 tonnes in the same period of year 2017. 

    According to customs data, February imports of rapeseed oil totaled 95,900 tonnes, up 93.35% from January’s 49,600 tonnes. So far, imports in the first two months of year 2018 added up to 145,600 tonnes, down 8.14% from 158,500 tonnes on an year-on-year basis.