Singapore 08/08/2016 - China’s imports of unwrought copper and copper products fell 14.3 percent month-on-month to 360,000 tonnes in July, according to preliminary data published by the country’s General Administration of Customs on Monday.
July was the fourth consecutive month of decline on a month-on-month basis for Chinese copper metal and copper product imports.
Imports in January-July totalled 3.09 million tonnes, up 19.5 percent year-on-year.
Year-to-date data continued to show strong growth largely due to strong imports in the first quarter of the year owing to earlier arbitrage opportunities between the Shanghai Futures Exchange and London Metal Exchange – the import arb window has mostly been closed since late-January.
But some market participants had expected Chinese copper imports to contract in the near-term due to the closed import arb, start of the non-peak demand season in June, slowdown in trading activities due to summer holidays overseas, as well as recent floods in China which has affected downstream copper fabricators.
The customs did not provide separate import figures for unwrought copper and copper products.
Chinese copper ore and concentrate imports rose 2.2 percent month-on-month to 1.38 million tonnes in July, taking year-to-date imports to 9.41 million tonnes, up 36.1 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile, China’s unwrought aluminium and aluminium product exports increased 2.6 percent month-on-month to 390,000 tonnes in July.
This took exports to 2.67 million tonnes in the first seven months of the year, which was down 6.9 percent compared to the same period last year.
The customs did not provide separate export figures for unwrought aluminium and aluminium products.