REGION |
Soya Opec? Brazil is negotiating an alliance with Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to coordinate policies on agricultural exports in an effort to prevent Asian buyers from playing the countries off against each other, Brazil's agriculture minister, Wagner Rossi, revealed this week. Soya is a big part of discussions. Any deal between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay over soya would account for half of the world's soybean production prompting some ambitious suggestions that the countries could become like a soya Opec. Rossi insisted that the comparison was inapposite because there was no plan to manipulate markets or increase prices under this new agreement, but rather to avoid being “manipulated by buyers". China is the world's largest soybean importer. China halted Argentine soybean-oil imports in April as part of a trade dispute over textiles and white goods. As ever in Mercosur, which is an 'imperfect' customs union for a reason, marrying the political will with economic sense is unlikely to prove straightforward.
This issue will receive further coverage in our sister publication
Brazil & Southern Cone, which is published on 3 November.
End of preview - This article contains approximately 180 words.
Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article
Not a Subscriber?
Choose from one of the following options
