A cargo of U.S. corn for the Soviet Union was rejected and forced to be unloaded at a Chicago export elevator earlier this week after it failed to make grade, with the British vessel Broompark now being reloaded, an elevator spokesman said. The first attempt to load the ship failed when the percentage of broken kernels proved to be higher than contract specifications, he said. The Soviets traditionally refuse to take sub-grade grain at a price discount, as is the practice with many other importing nations, he added.

West German use of tapioca is likely to decline further despite favourable prices and import licences for only 420,000 tonnes have been registered since the start of the current agricultural year, compared with 640,000 tonnes during August/April the previous year, trade sources said. The 12 European Community (EC) countries have licensed a total of 4.22 mln tonnes, while at the same year-earlier period the EC contracted for 3.17 mln tonnes, they said.

Ministers from the major trading nations have for the first time made a concerted commitment to review the whole distorted structure of world farm trade, Canadian Trade Minister Patricia Carney said. “We think we can get some movement on this,” she told reporters at a briefing following informal talks with the U.S., Japanese and European Community (EC) trade ministers here. Canada, strongly supported by Australia, has championed the cause of both developed and developing nations which have seen their farm trade suffer largely due to a farm subsidy war between the United States and the EC.

The Brazilian Coffee Institute, IBC, plans to sell in a series of auctions over the next few weeks robusta coffee purchased in London last year, but details of where and when auctions will take place are still to be finalised, IBC president Jorio Dauster told reporters. The sales of 630,000 bags of robusta and an unspecified amount of Brazilian arabica coffee will take place over a minimum of six months but it is not decided where sales will take place or whether they will be held weekly or monthly.

The Philippines has received a 300 mln dlr loan from the Japanese Export-Import Bank, Philippine Finance Minister Jaime Ongpin told Reuters. Ongpin said the loan, carrying interest of 5.5 pct a year, matches a 300 mln dlr economic recovery loan approved by the World Bank in March. Ongpin said Japanese Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa expressed satisfaction at the recent rescheduling of the Philippines’ 10.3 billion dlr foreign debt during a meeting here yesterday.

The European Community is to offer Argentina compensation for its loss of maize and sorghum exports to Spain following Spain’s accession to the EC, EC sources said. They said the offer will be made next week in Geneva, headquarters of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and will also involve products other than cereals. They gave no further details. Argentine exports of sorghum to Spain fell to zero last year from 300,000 tonnes in 1985, while maize sales fell to 15,000 tonnes from 994,000, official EC statistics show.

New York Federal Reserve Bank President Gerald Corrigan opposed a further fall in the value of the dollar but refused to say whether U.S. interest rates would be raised to protect the currency. “A further decline in the dollar or appreciation of the yen at this juncture I would regard as counterproductive,” he told a news conference. His comments echoed those made last week by U.S. Treasury Secretary James Baker, who also warned against a further dollar fall.

Spring rain in the last few days has helped ease a serious drought in most of north China, the New China News Agency said. It said rain fell in Peking, Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Sichuan and parts of Inner Mongolia. It said the drought in Shanxi, north Hebei, north Shaanxi and Peking has basically ended. But snowfalls of 10 mm have affected spring sowing in Liaoning, struck by abnormally cold and warm weather since January, including rainfall 10 times more than normal in some places, it said, but gave no more details.

The Soviet Union has added 50,000 tonnes to its previous purchases of U.S. corn purchases, the U.S. Agriculture Department said. In its Export Sales Report covering transactions in the week ended March 26, the department said changes in destinations of 250,000 tonnes of corn to the Soviet Union were reported. However, 200,000 tonnes of the transaction was reported under the daily reporting system. Total corn commitments for delivery in the fourth year of the U.

The World Bank will prepay on July 9, 1987 and July 17, 1987 the total amount outstanding of two Swiss franc public issues, in the first of what could be a series of similar moves in other capital markets, a spokesman for the Bank said in a telephone call from Washington. The prepayments cover 96 mln Swiss francs of 6-1/2 pct Swiss franc bonds of 1976 and due 1991, lead managed by Swiss Bank Corporation and 100 mln Swiss francs of 7-3/8 pct bonds of 1981 and due 1991, lead managed by Credit Suisse.