News

Loss of China market hurts US DDGs

The CEO of the U.S. Grains Council says China’s ruling to subject U.S. distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGs) to import duties could shut down market access to the U.S.

Tom Sleight says the U.S. will lose the best market it had for DDGs.  “The worst possible case, if you add up all of the various duties that go on to U.S. DDGs, that number can be over 90 percent in added duties. That is a number that is definitely trading inhibiting if not worse.”

He tells Brownfield the anti-dumping and countervailing duties are counterintuitive.  “It’s not in your best interest, in terms of food security and food safety and so forth for Chinese consumers, to limit your sources of feed ingredients, to fuel, a very strong and growing demand for meat and meat products and feed.”  China is the world’s largest buyer of DDGs and almost all of its imports come from the US.

Sleight says the loss of the market hurts – but they are working to grow demand in other countries.  “What the U.S. Grains Council has done is doubled and redoubled our efforts in other countries to make up some of the market loss that may be upcoming in China. Countries like Korea, countries like Mexico, North Africa, Southeast Asia.”

China issued a preliminary decision on the duties in September and finalized it earlier this week.

AUDIO: Tom Sleight, US Grains Council