A combine and a grain cart work in a soybean field of Pellett family's farm in Atlantic, a small city in Iowa, the United States, Oct. 16, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Chinese companies ordered 4.03 million tons of soybeans from the US in June under efforts to implement the phase one trade deal, according to a statement sent by the to the US Soybean Export Council to the Global Times.

Of those purchases, 1.3 million tons will be shipped before the end of July, while 2.73 million tons will be shipped between September and the end of December.

"The coronavirus impact on China's soybean purchase is only limited, and China's soybean demands are relatively strong in general," noted the council's statement.

In comparison, China imported 665,590 tons of US soybeans in April, customs data showed. 

China's hog industry is recovering from the influence of African swine flu, while the poultry industry remainslarge-scale and relatively profitable, which has pushed demand for soybean purchases, an important raw material forhog and poultry feed, according to the US Soybean Export Council.

The US Department of Agriculture also noted that weekly US soybean export sales in the first week of June were the largest in at least 16 months, with the majority slated for shipment to China. 

In total, China imported 45.04 million tons of soybeans in the first half of this year, up 17.9 percent on a yearly basis, customs data showed on Tuesday. 

Jiao Shanwei, editor-in-chief of cngrain.com, a website specializing in grain news, said that China has recently been ramping up its purchasing of US soybeans in order to implement the phase one trade deal. 

"However, there will be many uncertainties in the China-US soybean trade in the future. It will largely hinge on how the two countries' political relations evolve, particularly after the upcoming US presidential election," Jiao told the Global Times. 

He also noted that given the uncertainties of China-US relations and the pandemic threat, Chinese companies will speed up purchases of soybeans from Brazil.