South Korean buyers, however, were expected to hold back in anticipation of a decline in Chicago Board of Trade grain futures on a good harvest. In Taiwan, the Great Wall Feed Group would hold a tender for around 56,000 tonnes of US corn this week, said a group official.
"We will definitely tender this week, but the details have yet to be worked out," said the official. One trader said the tender could be held on Tuesday. The Taiwan flourmills Association will seek 43,000 tonnes of US wheat on Tuesday, after the tender was postponed last week due to a typhoon.
The Kaohsiung division of the Breakfast Soyabean Procurement Association, meanwhile, is still mulling a shipment of around 60,000 tonnes of optional origin soya. An official with the group said demand should begin to pick up in the coming months.
The official added that no decision had been made on when a tender would be held. In Japan, buyers are expected to continue covering their remaining requirements for October-loading cargoes of soyabeans, estimated at 30 percent to a little under 50 percent.
"It's already September this week, so we will have to get working on our (remaining) October-loading cargoes," one Japanese trader said. Japanese oilseed crushers have also largely drawn up their crushing programmes for the fourth quarter, providing a basis for importers to calculate how much to buy.
Japan, which buys about 300,000-400,000 tonnes of soyabeans each month, has been curbing purchases due to high stocks of soyabean and soya meal.
Japan's imports of soyabeans in July fell 5.54 percent from a year to about 374,960 tonnes, Japanese government data released on Monday showed.
An official at a major Japanese crusher said it planned to crush a little less in the October-December quarter this year compared to the year-ago period, citing continued high meal stocks due largely to a heavy influx from China.
In the corn market, Japanese buyers were believed to have covered roughly 40 percent of their needs for the October to December quarter, up from about 30 percent a week.
This year's record heatwave has hit feed demand for corn, causing inventories to swell, and traders were divided on whether purchases would reach 3 million tonnes, the volume Japanese importers typically buy in one quarter.
Japanese government data released on Monday showed that Japan's imports of corn in July fell 10.42 percent from a year to about 813,410 tonnes.
In South Korea, only the Major Feedmills Group was seeking soyameal and corn for feed production for November arrivals, traders said.
"We are waiting for further falls in the CBOT, once the harvest for US new crops is in full swing in the coming months," said an official at Nonghyup Feed Inc.
The size of the 2004 US corn crop is now estimated by the US Department of Agriculture at a record 10.923 billion bushels.
Korean feed makers were also reluctant to sign a new import deal because of dampened feed demand, which has been hit by a hot summer and a sluggish economy, traders said.
According to the latest industry data, South Korea's feed output in July fell 5.4 percent to almost 1.2 million tonnes from a year earlier and also shed 2.7 percent from the previous month.
In the wheat market, South Korean flour millers have no immediate plans to buy US No 1 wheat, saying that they have almost covered their needs for November shipments.