By Ella Cao and Lewis Jackson
BEIJING, May 20 (Reuters) – China’s soybean imports from Brazil fell 22.2% in April from a year earlier, data showed on Tuesday, as harvest delays, logistics issues and prolonged customs clearance disrupted shipments.
China imported 4.60 million metric tons of the oilseed from Brazil last month, showed data from the General Administration of Customs.
April soybean arrivals from the U.S., China’s second-biggest supplier, fell 43.7% compared to the year-earlier period to 1.38 million tons, as buyers turned to Brazil for supplies, partly due to tariff uncertainty.
Overall soybean imports for April totalled6.08 million tons, the lowest since 2015.
For the January to April period, shipments from Brazil totalled 9.14 million tons, down 42.5% compared with the same period last year.
Total arrivals from the U.S. in the first four months of the year came to 12.95 million tons, up 35.2% on a year prior, the data also showed.
(Reporting by Ella Cao and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Christopher Cushing)