(Reuters) -China imports of soybean and coal rose in January-February from a year earlier, while those of iron ore, crude oil, and unwrought copper fell, customs data showed on Friday.
China’s exports in the January-February period increased just 2.3% year-on-year by value, while imports unexpectedly contracted 8.4%.
A Reuters poll of economists had forecast a 5% expansion in exports and a 1% increase in imports. Those compared with exports growth of 10.7% and imports growth of 1.0% in December 2024.
KEY POINTS: * Soybean: Jan-Feb imports at 13.61 mmt, up 4.4% y/y
* Unwrought copper: Jan-Feb imports at 837,000 mt, down 7.2% y/y
* Coal: Jan-Feb imports at 76.12 mmt, up 2.1% y/y
* Iron ore: Jan-Feb imports at 191 mmt, down 8.4% y/y
* Crude oil: Jan-Feb imports at 83.85 mmt, down 5% y/y
* Rare earths: Jan-Feb imports at 16,922.2 T, down 24.1% y/y
Preliminary table of commodity trade data
Below are comments from analysts on the commodities data.
COMMENT ON IRON ORE
SHAN PENG, ANALYST, CHINA BASE NINGBO GROUP NINGBO
“The drastic annual fall in ore imports in the first two months of the year is largely because of weather-related supply disruption in major supplier Australia and Brazil.”
PEI HAO, ANALYST, FREIGHT INVESTOR SERVICES, SHANGHAI
“The wave of cyclone in Australia in January and February disrupted local shipments, resulting in a decline in China’s iron ore imports in these two months.”
COMMENT ON SOYBEAN
WAN CHENGZHI, ANALYST AT CAPITAL JINGDU FUTURES
“The import volume in January-February is basically in line with expectations, and it also continues the upward trend in 2024. However, we should pay attention to the import volume in March, which is currently expected to be less than 6 million tons.”
COMMENT ON COPPER
WILLIAM ADAMS, HEAD OF BASE METALS RESEARCH, FASTMARKETS, UK
“The increase in China’s copper smelting capacity, which has led to the fall in treatment and refining charges, means there has probably been little need China to import too much additional metal.”
COMMENT ON CRUDE OIL
MIA GENG, ANALYST, FGE
“Although customs data lumped the two months together, imports into January (in terms of barrels per day) were 800,000 to 1 million bpd lower than February, as the U.S. sanctions on tankers as well as shipping ban by Shandong Port Group disrupted discharges of Russian and Iranian crude into Shandong in January.”
“But as shippers found a way to bypass the restrictions and non-sanctioned tankers were positioned, inflows saw a rebound last month. However, we believe some of the crude might have been temporarily stored in bonded tanks, which might not be reflected in the customs data yet.”
LINKS: For details, see the official Customs website (www.customs.gov.cn)
BACKGROUND:
China is the world’s biggest crude oil importer and top buyer of coal, copper, iron ore, and soybeans.
(Reporting by Asia Commodities and Energy team; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
