On the face of it, China’s March import performance (down by just 0.9% from a year ago) would be enough to pose the question, COVID-19, what disruption?
But that’s to come in future months on the export side when the country’s exporters look for orders from the major economies of the west and find there are very few.
For the moment though the import story in march tells us nothing about the health of the economy last month. Much of the imports were to meet reduced consumption, backed up by stockpiling or inventory replenishment (iron ore, oil and copper for instance)
China’s iron ore imports dipped by just 1.3% in March to a still high 85.91 million tonnes according to the official data from the General Administration of Customs.
That was down 0.6% from 86.42 million tonnes a year earlier, and compared with 176.8 million tonnes over the first two months of 2020.
For the first quarter this year, imports were up 1.3% at 262.7 million tonnes of iron ore from 259.3 million tonnes in the same period a year earlier.
That the first quarter covered the period when the economy was whacked by the COVID-19 driven pandemic closures in late January through into March by the government, and the slow recovery in mid to late March, tells us that steel industry demand was very solid in the first quarter. That’s even though prices eased in the quarter.
Analysts said iron ore imports fell as mills arranged maintenance or cut output because of the record-high inventories. Steel inventories held by traders across China as of March 12 were at a record 25.98 million tonnes, according to the Mysteel consultancy.
The official customs data also showed China shipped 6.48 million tonnes of steel products overseas in March, up 2.4% from a year earlier. For the first three months of the year, China exported 14.3 million tonnes of steel products, down 16% from the same period a year earlier, hurt by sluggish demand abroad as the coronavirus pandemic spread.
Oil imports in March and for the three months were also solid, despite the fall in consumption for much of the period.
China’s Customs Administration said crude imports last month, (when much of the world’s second-largest economy was in lockdown) totalled 41.1 million tonnes of oil. That is equal to 9.68 million barrels per day (BPD).
The March daily figure was down on the 10.47 million BPD for the first two months of the year. It was also up 4.5% from March 2019.
Imports in the first quarter rose 5% from a year earlier to 127.19 million tonnes, equal to 10.2 million BPD.
China’s imports of unwrought copper (including anode, refined and semi-finished copper products) in March rose 13% from a year ago to 441,926 tonnes last month, the General Administration of Customs said.
That was the lowest monthly total since October but was up from 391,000 tonnes in March 2019 and compared to 846,107 tonnes in January and February 2020 combined.
For the first quarter, imports were up 9.1% year-on-year at 1.287 million tonnes, customs said.
Imports in March of copper concentrate, used to make refined copper, were the lowest since September at 1.779 million tonnes as smelters reduced operating rates and in some cases moved to defer cargoes as stocks rose off the back of lower demand.
The March figure was up 0.7% year-on-year, however, while concentrate shipments over the first three months of 2020 were down 0.5% year-on-year at 5.547 million tonnes.
Aluminium exports last month fell 5% from a bumper figure a year earlier to 518,594 tonnes but were still at their highest since May 2019. First-quarter exports were 1.19 million tonnes, down 17.5% from a year earlier.
Meantime, imports of natural gas (and LNG) were little changed at 6.92 million, while arrivals of coal were up 19% year-on-year to 27.8 million tonnes. For the first three months of the year, coal imports shrank 2.9%.
China brought in 7.81 million tonnes of soybeans from the U.S. in the first quarter of 2020, shipments of US pork to China during the first quarter were 168,000 tonnes, up 640% from the previous year (the rise was because of the cut to Chinese production because of the impact of the African swine fever pandemic through the county’s pig herds). Imports of American cotton were 124,000 tonnes, up 43.5% from last year.
