USSEC directors Stan Born, American Soybean Association director and Illinois farmer, and Lance Rezac, United Soybean Board director and Kansas farmer, traveled to Taiwan as part of a USSEC trade mission to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of U.S. Soy’s partnership with Taiwan on November 14 and 15. Since 1969, the U.S. soy industry has worked in Taiwan to build relationships to help meet that market’s soybean import and processing needs. This mission reinforced this partnership with Taiwanese soybean buyers, purchasers, and other stakeholders representing the soybean value chain.
Soyfoods are a staple of the Taiwanese diet and the market relies heavily on the U.S. to supply it with oils for cooking or soybean meal to meet the country’s pork and poultry production needs. In 1969, Taiwan imported just 472,000 metric tons of soybeans from the United States. By the most recent marketing year, however, U.S. exports to Taiwan exceeded 2.2 million metric tons, an 86% market share. Taiwan also serves as a strategic market for U.S. Soy, ranking seventh for soybean exports.
Additional grower leaders and government officials representing key soybean production states also participated in the mission, engaged with Taiwanese buyers, customers, and other key stakeholders during the U.S. Soy and Oil Outlook Conference and 50th Anniversary Celebration, which was attended by nearly 200 Taiwanese buyers and purchasers in Taipei. The delegation also engaged with Taiwanese customers, visiting with representatives of TTET Union Corporation’s crushing facility and Chung Fen tofu factory in Southern Taiwan.