BALI, Indonesia (Dow Jones)--The world's largest soybean producer, theU.S., will likely harvest 2.85 billion bushels of soybeans in the 2004-05crop year, much lower than a forecast last week by the U.S. Department ofAgriculture at 2.88 billion bushes, said Emily French, vice president ofthe Washington, D.C.-based private research firm, Worldperspectives Inc.Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of the third EastAsia-U.S Agricultural Co-operators' Conference, French said she expectsChina, the world's largest soybean buyer, to import only around 18 millionmetric tons this year, despite a more bullish USDA estimate of more than20 million tons."We see the Chinese demand is not as large as the USDA figure. AndChinese buying will probably have to wait until the whole trading defaultissue is cleaned up, buyers and sellers settle on new contract termsetc.," said French.Earlier in the year, several international trading houses accusedChinese buyers of trying to cancel cargos booked at higher prices,following a sharp drop in the market in the subsequent months.In the corn market, French said the new U.S. crop is likely to reach10.65 billion bushels, much smaller than the USDA's earlier projection ofa record high 10.92 billion bushels."What the USDA projected was probably the best-case scenario, while Isee more downside risk to that number," said French.But China is going to be a net corn importer as early as the firsthalf of 2005 with the country's estimated stocks-to-use ratio dipping to18%, based on USDA figures, French said.The stocks-to-use ratio represents the end-of-the-year stocks as apercentage of full-year consumption."In a mere six years, China has seen that ratio go down from 108% toan estimated 18% at the end of April 2005," French said.