KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIA — Developing new opportunities for U.S. agriculture in Southeast Asia was the goal of the 2018 Southeast Asia U.S. Agriculture Cooperators Conference (ACC) in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

Importers from the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia as well as exporters from major U.S. trading companies interacted on trade and product issues and discussed shifting trade patterns and how to identify opportunities in the market to conduct actual sales. A contingency of U.S. farmers also connected directly with members of the overseas grain trade at the conference.

“Based on written evaluations submitted, more than 1.1 million tonnes of U.S. agricultural products were traded at the 2018 conference, including 120,000 tonnes of U.S. corn and 246,000 tonnes of U.S. dried distiller’s grains with solubles (DDGS) valued at $74.5 million,” the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) said. “Total U.S. grain and oilseed sales amounted to $322,650,000.”

The event was co-sponsored by the USGC, the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).

The organizations joined efforts to provide Southeast Asian grain importers with the latest market and industry information on grain trade trends, fostering U.S. feed grain and oilseed sales into the region.

The USGC invested $50,000 of USDA’s Market Access Program (MAP) funds in support of the conference.

“With reported sales of $74.5 million of U.S. corn and DDGS, this translates into a return on investment (ROI) of $1,490 for every $1 of MAP funds invested,” the USGC said.