MANILA - U.S. soybean futures rose for a second session on Thursday amid slower-than-expected harvesting and fresh export sales, with wheat and corn prices also edging higher.

FUNDAMENTALS

* The most-traded soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade, for January, was up 0.5 percent at $8.82-3/4 a bushel by 0123 GMT.

* The U.S. soybean harvest was 88 percent complete, behind the average trade estimate of 91 percent and the five-year average of 93 percent, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed on Tuesday.

* Private exporters sold 148,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans to unknown destinations, the second such sale in as many days, according to the USDA.

* China, the world's top soybean buyer, has delivered a written response to U.S. demands for wide-ranging trade reforms, three U.S. government sources said, a move that could trigger negotiations to bring an end to a withering trade war between the world's top economies.

* U.S. soybean exports to China have declined in recent months after Beijing raised tariffs on the most valuable U.S. agricultural export to the country.

* CBOT wheat gained 0.2 percent to $5.03-3/4 a bushel and corn added 0.3 percent to $3.67-1/2.

* The global grain market needs more U.S. wheat to make up for tightening supply in other major exporting zones, but China will be able to keep shunning U.S. soybeans in its trade tussle with Washington, grain merchants said.

MARKET NEWS

* Asian stocks edged up as a steep slide in crude oil prices which had chilled investor sentiment slowed, while the pound and euro were supported after British Prime Minister Theresa May gained cabinet support for a Brexit deal.

DATA AHEAD (GMT)

0130 China House prices Oct

0930 UK Retail sales Oct

1000 Euro zone Eurostat trade Sep

1330 U.S. New York Fed manufacturing Nov

1330 U.S. Import prices Oct

1330 U.S. Export prices Oct

1330 U.S. Weekly jobless claims

1330 U.S. Philly Fed business index Nov

1330 U.S. Retail sales Oct

1500 U.S. Business inventories Sep

(Reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr. Editing by Joseph Radford)

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