USSEC conducted the 15th U.S. Soy Trade Price Risk Management Training on April 25 and 26 in Shanghai, China. Susan Sutherland of USSEC member CME / Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and Bell Chen from USSEC member R. J. O’Brien provided training to a total of 45 trainees, soymeal sales managers from top U.S. soybean importing companies or soybean meal purchasing managers from top U.S. soybean importers’ preferred customer feed millers. USSEC Country Director - China Xiaoping Zhang participated in this activity and promoted the U.S. Soy Sustainability Assurance Protocol (SSAP) and the U.S. Soy Advantage, particularly amino acid profile, to the audience during his opening and closing remarks.

In the soybean meal business, basis contract is becoming more popular, which has closely tied soybean meal sales and purchases with futures markets on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) and CME/CBOT. Just recently, DCE launched the first futures option contract in China’s futures trading history, i.e. options on soybean meal futures. Such market and risk management tools are so new to the majority of the feed industry that the timing is right to provide training on elementary futures trading to the industry. Additionally, an overall market outlook and case study were provided to the audience to help them better understand different market influencing factors, and hands-on practices were provided through a simulation for the audience to enhance their knowledge and skills of price risk management tools and economic effects. The audience regarded the evaluation and discussion of the strategies they used during different pricing stages in the simulation to be very valuable.

As in previous years, this program received strong support from CME/CBOT by recommending professional trainers and training materials. Tina Liao, director of client development and sales, based in Singapore, traveled to this event and provided assistance in educating the audience on futures and options basics.

USSEC Marketing Program Manager - China Yantian Zeng and Marketing Program Assistant Binbin Du organized the program and similar previous programs, which have all been well received by participants.