Major Chinese Imports Collectively Up 20% Y-O-Y In May
Special China Update
- As we have continued to stress in our work this year, China's dry bulk commodity imports have remained strong despite the unevenness in China's industrial recovery. China's import data for May has now been released and shows that China's coal, iron ore, and soybean imports totaled a very robust 147.7 million tons. This is up month-on-month by 9.3 million tons (7%), up year-on-year by 25 million tons (20%), and is just below the all-time high of 148.8 million tons that was imported in July 2020. We continue to stress that coverage of China remains far too bearish (while coverage of the United States and various other nations remains far too bullish).
- China's coal imports totaled a very robust 39.5 million tons last month. This is down month-on-month by just 1.2 million tons (-3%) but is up year-on-year by 18.9 million tons (92%). Iron ore imports totaled 96.2 million tons. This is up month-on-month by 5.8 million tons (6%) and up year-on-year by 3.7 million tons (4%). Soybean imports totaled a record 12 million tons. This is up month-on-month by 4.7 million tons (64%) and up year-on-year by 2.3 million tons (24%). Looking forward, there are still no signs that China's robust appetite for commodity imports is set to suddenly reverse. In our view, even iron ore imports are likely to remain strong in the near future even as the nation's steel production remains in contraction. This will be discussed in greater detail in our upcoming Weekly Dry Bulk Report and Weekly China Report.