China's state planner has set its 2027 tariff-rate import quotas for wheat, corn, rice and cotton at the same levels as this year, and the commerce ministry has kept the 2027 fertiliser import quota flat, Global Agriculture reported. Beijing is opening no extra room for bulk grain or nutrient imports while a closely watched soybean-buying round with the United States continues.
Under the 2027 schedule the wheat quota holds at 9.64 million tonnes, corn at 7.2 million, rice at 5.32 million and cotton at 894,000 tonnes, all unchanged from 2026. The fertiliser import tariff-rate quota stays at 13.65 million tonnes.
Trade analysts stressed that this is a continuation, not a new restriction. Since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, China has let only a licensed share of imports in at the lower in-quota tariff. State trading enterprises hold a large share of the grain quota, and the pace of imports depends more on Beijing's stockpiling decisions, the gap between in-quota and out-of-quota duties and whether domestic corn trades above imported corn than on the quota figure itself.
Soybeans sit outside the quota system. Chinese state buyers resumed purchases of US soybean cargoes in mid-October, for the first time since September's summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Before that round, China had taken about 13.7 million tonnes of the 25-million-tonne annual commitment for 2026-27 that the White House says Beijing agreed to, a figure Beijing has not publicly confirmed.
China's September soybean imports from all sources were about 11.88 million tonnes, down 7.7% from a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data, a reminder that the headline trade story is being carried by soybeans rather than by the quota-bound grains.
Source: Global Agriculture
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