The 12.5% slump in China’s imports in July from the same month in 2015 can’t be blamed on weaker commodity prices, nor can it be attributed to the weakening value of the yuan, which eased a touch last month.
China’s imports have now declined for 21 straight months, while exports have fallen for 12 of 13 months.
Copper, coal and oil were softer last month, but iron ore had another good month.
Weaker domestic demand was the best reason – but not for iron ore which jumped to its second highest monthly figure on record – 88.4 million tonnes – up 8.3% from June and 2.7% from a year ago.
The figure was second only behind the 96.27 million tonnes imported last December.
For January to July, imports rose 8.1% from the same period the year before to 582.05 million tonnes, and for the 12 months to July, they hit an all time high for a 12 month period at 996 million tonnes.
China’s steel exports in July though fell 5.9% in July from June to 10.3 million tonnes. Total exports for the first seven months of 2016 rose 8.5% to 67.41 million tonnes from a year ago.
Crude oil imports also picked up, with imports rising by 1.5% to 31.07 million tonne in July, and up 1.2% from July last year.
That was well below the record high of 33.185 million tonnes imported in December last year.
On a daily basis the volume was the lowest since January, and down from June’s 7.45 million barrels per day (bpd). It was the second month that annual growth in crude imports has eased.
In cumulative terms, China imported 359 million tonnes of crude in the past 12 months, the largest total on record. It was 9.9% higher than the amount imported in the year to July 2015.
And for the first seven months of the year, China imported 217.6 million tonnes of crude oil, or 7.46 million bpd, up 12%.
Coal imports totalled 21.21 million tonnes, down slightly from the 21.75 million tonnes in June, the lowest July figure for five years.
Copper imports also softened, dropping to 360,000 tonnes (an 11 month low) from 420,000 tonnes in June. But shipments were still up 2.9% from a year ago and total imports for January-July were up 19.5% at 3.09 million tonnes.
Soybean import volumes bucked the trend, rising to 7.76 million tonnes from 7.56 million tonnes in June.
