Singapore 08/09/2016 - China’s imports of unwrought copper and copper products fell 2.8 percent month-on-month to 350,000 tonnes in August, according to preliminary data published by the country’s General Administration of Customs on Thursday.
August was the fifth consecutive month of decline on a month-on-month basis for Chinese copper metal and copper product imports. But the drop is to a smaller extent compared to July’s month-on-month decline of 14.3 percent.
Imports in January-August totalled 3.45 million tonnes, up 17.4 percent year-on-year.
Year-to-August 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.
Market participants had expected Chinese copper imports to continue contracting in August due to the closed import arb, the non-peak demand season in June-August and slowdown in trading activities due to summer holidays overseas.
The customs did not provide separate import figures for unwrought copper and copper products.
Chinese copper ore and concentrate imports rose 5.1 percent month-on-month to 1.45 million tonnes in August, taking year-to-date imports to 10.86 million tonnes, up 34.6 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile, China’s unwrought aluminium and aluminium product exports increased 5.1 percent month-on-month to 410,000 tonnes in August.
This took exports to 3.08 million tonnes in the first eight months of the year, which was down 3.9 percent compared to the same period last year.
The customs did not provide separate export figures for unwrought aluminium and aluminium products.