Unofficial data indicate that Brazil shipped out 12.6 million tonnes of soybeans last month, 43 percent more than the March average in the last five years, and that at least 60 percent was bound for China, Reuters reports.

The news agency, citing figures given by compiler of financial data Refinitiv and the Williams shipping agency, says the cargos shipped out last month will take between 40 days and 50 days to arrive in China.

The shipments will help replenish Chinese inventories of soybeans, which have fallen to their lowest on record, Reuters says.

In a separate report, the Chinese government-run news agency, Xinhua, quotes Daniel Amaral, an economist for the Brazilian oilseed industry association, Abiove, as saying Brazilian farmers will keep exporting oilseed to China at what he called an “expansive” pace.

Abiove has detected nothing abnormal in the flow of soybeans to China, and the soybean industry is unaffected by action taken to counter the Covid-19 pandemic, Xinhua quotes Mr Amaral as saying.