By the end of 2021, China increased imports of whey powder products by 24% - Agroexport

‘By the end of December, China is reducing imports of all key categories of milk powder products: skimmed milk powder, whole milk powder and whey. The decline in imports has acquired a trend and has been going on for several months. Nevertheless, high import rates in the 1st half of the year made it possible to update record levels of purchases by the end of 2021. Thus, the import of whole milk powder increased by 24%, whey - by 32%, skimmed milk powder - by 17%. It is also important to note the import of processed milk at the level of about 1 MMT,’ stated in the report.

The supply of whey powder to China and the USA increased by 35%, to Belarus - by 25% (up to 74 TMT). France and the Netherlands (74 and 72 TMT) were also close to the Belarusian volume in terms of supply.

However, in the last 5 months, the supply of whey powder products has been steadily declining amid falling demand, Agroexport reports. This factor affects the feed whey segment in the USA, exports are stagnating. However, domestic demand in the food segment created support for the American market in January, as a result of which whey in the United States rose in price by 15% over the month.

‘Against this background, the competitiveness of Russian whey increases when delivered to the Philippines, where export parity from Russia is more profitable than goods from the EU and the USA,’ the report concluded.