LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND — COFCO Corp. plans to form a global commodities trading firm by the end of 2016 that will integrate Nidera BV, Noble Agri and parts of COFCO, according to Nidera’s chief executive officer.

It’s a move that would allow the Chinese food company to compete with the so-called ABCD grain traders: Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Ltd., Cargill and Louis Dreyfus.

“We don’t want to be the fifth ABCD,” Ton van der Laan, Nidera’s CEO, told reporters at the Financial Times Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland, April 20-22. “We have the unique chance now to create something completely new: a company with a very large home Chinese market and a global trading network, which none of the ABCDs have.”

COFCO purchased 51% of Nidera and Noble in 2014. To integrate the companies, COFCO must decide how to distribute the 49% owned by Nidera’s founding families and Noble Group, van der Laan said.
   
COFCO plans to sell shares in the trading company to the public, he said.