Soybeans declined, set for the first monthly loss in five in Chicago, on concern that demand for the U.S. oilseed may be waning as China, the world’s largest buyer, cracks down on speculators. January-delivery soybeans lost 0.3 percent to $12.3175 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade at 11:52 a.m. Singapore time, headed for a 0.3 percent loss this month. Soybeans for export, inspected at U.S. ports fell 15.1 percent to 48.9 million bushels in the week to Nov. 25, from a week earlier, the nation’s Department of Agriculture said yesterday. The U.S. is the world’s largest grower and exporter of the oilseed. “On the bearish front, China continued to crack down on speculators whom it blamed for forcing up the price of many commodities and causing inflation to rise,” Ker Chung Yang, an analyst at Phillip Futures Pte. in Singapore, said in an e- mailed report. The government has pledged to control prices and may increase interest rates a second time this year to slow the fastest inflation in two years and to curb food costs that jumped 10.1 percent in October. China will also make buying and selling commodity futures more expensive to cool speculation. China will sell 300,000 metric tons of soybeans in auctions on Dec. 3, the Hefei National Grain Trade Center said in a statement last week. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will work to increase supplies of cooking oil, sugar and cement to stabilize prices, according to a statement posted on the ministry’s website yesterday. Wheat Drops Wheat for March delivery dropped 0.3 percent to $6.885 a bushel, increasing the monthly loss for the most-active contract to 4.3 percent. Wheat for export inspected at U.S. ports rose 4.3 percent to 20.8 million bushels in the week to Nov. 25 from a week earlier, the USDA said. That takes the total volume bound for shipment since June 1 to 548.9 million bushels, up 27.7 percent from a year ago. About 47 percent of the U.S. winter-wheat crop was rated good to excellent in the week ended Nov. 28, unchanged from a week earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said yesterday. That compares with a rating of 63 percent for the same period last year. March-delivery corn declined 0.2 percent to $5.52 a bushel, widening the monthly loss to 5.2 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net

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