18/09/04 CHINA - Although the US soybean prices have dropped greatly thisweek, China has still only bought less than 2 million tons of soybeanstotally, with most of the contracts signed by FOB term. At present, thepurchasing funds of most Chinese large and middle crushers have beenshort. If the procurements of both the domestic and international soybeansdecline this year, the soybean prices in Northeast China will beinfluenced by insufficient demand, which will provide broad developmentspaces for large foreign crushers, and this will probably lead to greatchanges in the pattern of China’s soybean crushing industry in 2004/05.