According to public information available at the moment, Chinese government corporation COFCO is purchasing majority share in one of the largest agricultural trading companies, Noble. Hopu Investment Management, another Chinese company is partnering with COFCO in this acquisition. Sources say that the total value of the acquisition is over USD 1 billion for approximately 60% of company’s shares. Noble Group headquarters are located in Hong-Kong, and company’s operations include agricultural commodities trading, metal and energy trading. Company is operating in 140 countries all over the world. Company’s turnover in 2013 is estimated at USD 98 billion, while operating profit reached USD 1.4 billion. Total capitalization of the company is estimated at USD 6.2 billion.

China has been in the spotlight recently in terms of demand and supply of agricultural commodities. Growing economy led to higher demand for higher quality food products from Chinese population. Such demand was met via increase of imports of agricultural commodities to China. Most recently however, Chinese companies are looking to secure their share in largest producers and traders of agricultural commodities. By doing so they are aiming to ensure food security for the country, as well as pull in production and origination resources that the country requires in the future due to growing demand.

UkrAgroConsult has completed review and recommendations study on investing in Ukrainian Agrarian Sector. You can follow this link to find out more about the study “How to profit from Ukraine’s agricultural sector?”. In case you are interested in state of agrarian sector within CIS region, please follow the link below to read UkrAgroConsult monthly report “Agrarian Business in CIS region” for January 2014 (featuring Ukraine). First issue is free of charge. You can subscribe to the report to receive it on a monthly basis.

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