Cofco’s terminal at the port of Santos in Brazil is due to open in 2025.
Photographer: Jonne Roriz/Jonne RorizChina’s Top Crop Trader Blunts Impact of US Trade War With Brazil Bet
Cofco is set to open a massive port terminal in Santos next year, its latest international splurge as it jostles to contend with the world’s biggest food merchants.
Flying over the southern Brazilian coastline in 2014, Ning Gaoning saw the future. From his airplane window, the chairman of Chinese trader Cofco Corp. spotted scores of trucks and trains laden with agricultural products — all headed to the port of Santos.
Ning, who also goes by his English name Frank, realized then, he later wrote in his memoir, that his company needed to own a piece of South America’s largest port. It would catapult the state-run group into the upper ranks of agricultural traders, he hoped.