-South Korea steps up corn buying following yesterday’s price weakness
-Another year of strong Chinese corn reserve sales seen ahead before stocks return to “normal levels”
-Ukraine corn exports running strongly ahead of year ago
-Russian grain production seen only modestly higher in coming year
-Officials say no progress on key trade issues has been made with Jan 30-31 talks looming
 Three South Korean feedmills bought a total of 260k tonnes of optional-origin corn overnight following yesterday’s corn market weakness, with various March-April shipment periods. Prices paid ranged from $207.35-$208.72/tonne c&f. It looks as though shipments in the earlier portion of the period should be U.S., but is less certain for later shipments.
 China’s ag ministry said they expect another year strong corn sales from state reserves in 2019, following this year’s auctions which saw slightly more than 100 MMT of corn sold from state stockpiles, upon which time officials expect China’s corn stocks to then have returned to “normal levels.†Of course, no details were provided on the level of stocks still held in state reserves, but the official said, “2019 will very likely be the end of this round of corn de-stocking in China, and the ending stocks are expected to return to normal levels.†Accordingly, this may signal than any hopes for China switching to be at least a modest corn importer in 2019/20 may be unwarranted, pushing those ideas out to 2020/21.
 U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley indicated USTR Robert Lighthizer “said that there hasn’t been any progress made on structural changes that need to be made,†as a result of the latest mid-level U.S./China trade talks that occurred in Beijing a few weeks ago. These comments come as U.S. officials are preparing to host higher-level discussions in Washington on January 30 and 31, in which Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin will participate, along with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. Concerns are escalating that time is running very tight in order for concrete improvements to be made on the key issues of intellectual property rights, US market access, stealing trade secrets, etc., ahead of the 90-day truce deadline of March 2 in which President Trump threatened to increase punitive tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25%. Adding to the time crunch is the start of the week-long Chinese New Year holiday on February 5.
 Ukraine’s 2018/19 marketing year to date (July 1-current) total grain exports hit 25.7 MMT vs 22.1 MMT at this point last year, with corn exports running very strongly at 10.8 MMT vs 6.6 MMT a year ago and wheat exports at 11.1 MMT vs 11.6 MMT last year at this time.
 Russia’s ag ministry said early ideas on 2019/20 total grain production are around 114.3 MMT, reflecting only a modest increase from this year’s 112.8 MMT.
ï‚· Iran tendered for 300k tonnes of corn, 300k tonnes SBM and 300k tonnes barley, but trade sanctions are believed to have prevented offers being made for the SBM and barley, while the limited corn offers were seen as too high. India has been involved with SBM sales to Iran of late under an oil for rupees deal, which allows Indian SBM sales to be made to Iran, and is likely to eventually be the way that portion of the business in completed.
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