Porto Alegre, 6/22/2004 (Agência Brasil) - After China virtually halted all soy imports from Brazil because of chemically-treated seeds in shipments in April and May, Brazilian authorities quickly moved to negotiate the problem. As a result, soy exports will once again have free access to the Chinese market beginning this Monday. The announcement was made by the governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Germano Rigotto, who is in Beijing participating in negotiations and heading a trade mission promoting exports from his state.

According to Rigotto, the results of the negotiations with Chinese authorities were the best possible. The Chinese have agreed to accept human consumption standards set in the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture's regulation (Instrução Normativa nº 15) of one grain of chemically-treated seed per kilo of soy. And the 23 Brazilian exporting firms which had been prohibited from exporting more goods to China, because of high levels of seeds with fungicide in their soy exports, will now be able to resume trade with China.

(Translator: Allen Bennett)