Regions

South & Southeast Asia

Solid Results

The Region delivered a strong performance in 2020, driven largely by our Freight desk, which successfully navigated a volatile market in the context of Covid-19 and related supply chain disruptions.

Meeting Demand

Coffee, rice, soybean meal and corn product lines had a particularly good year, due to high demand for essential commodities. Our Sugar Platform also performed exceptionally well, with strong origination and destination margins.

Resilience in Cotton

Cotton was the platform most impacted by Covid-19, especially in Australia, where drought also negatively affected performance. However, with a good understanding of local crop performance and a strong basis in India and Pakistan, the business ended the year well.

James Zhou
Head of Asia

The challenges we faced in 2020 demonstrated the resilience of our business in the Region, which grew in terms of volumes and profitability across most product lines, and expanded into new markets. Equally important, we showed our clients that they could count on us during difficult times, thanks to our first-class supply chain and risk management capabilities.

More Regional Highlights

We formed a research partnership with Barramundi Asia and Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, to develop optimal aquatic feed formulations for the commercial rearing of barramundi fish.

In Thailand, we expanded our Sugar and Grains & Oilseeds activities by establishing a representative office to support these operations and grow their market share.

We started importing and distributing sugar in Pakistan, and made the first sales of soy lecithin from Brazil to Vietnam and Thailand.

Further integration of LDC Logistics Vietnam coffee warehouse in Binh Duong province, Vietnam into our network, enhanced our processing, storage and logistics capabilities in this key origination market.

Also in Vietnam, LDC’s partnership with Jacobs Douwe Egberts, The Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) and Syngenta continued to support farmers in adapting to climate change challenges.

In 2020, our sustainability project in Vietnam distributed 20,000 seedlings and engaged 882 new farmers, bringing the total number of beneficiaries to more than 5,000 since 2016.

In Australia, we restructured and increased LDC’s stake in our joint venture with Namoi Cotton, taking greater control of trading and marketing activities.

Palm oil traceability remained a key focus. Mill-level traceability stayed at 100% for direct sourcing to our Indonesian refineries and increased to 96% for overall palm traded by our Singapore office.

Despite the challenges of Covid-19, plantation-level palm oil traceability also advanced in Indonesia, reaching 82% for Balikpapan and 75% for Lampung.

↑288%

year-on-year increase in Grains & Oilseeds volumes into Pakistan

100%

traceability for palm sourced directly for LDC refineries in Indonesia

20,000

coffee seedlings distributed to Vietnamese farmers

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