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China buys more commodities as prices fall
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PRICE slumps in the global commodity market continued to allow China to spend less while importing more, helping the country save on enormous import bills, latest customs data showed.
In the first 10 months of this year, China imported 252.6 million tons of crude oil, up 9.2 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.
The average price of crude oil imports was 4,731.20 yuan (US$773) per ton, down 2.4 percent from a year earlier.
In October, China imported 24.1 million tons of crude oil, down 12.7 percent from the previous month.
But the import value in October fell by a larger margin of 16.8 percent from that in September to US$17.05 billion, customs data showed.
Global commodity prices, especially crude prices, fell sharply in October, continuing a four-month run of declining prices, HSBC said in its latest report.
“Prices have fallen as a result of both strong supply and weakening demand,” the report said.
HSBC indicators suggest the IMF commodity price index is likely to have fallen by 7 percent in October, bringing the decline over the past three months to 16 percent.
The most recent decline was in large part due to lower oil prices, although there was weakness across other energy commodities and metals too, HSBC said.
Customs data also showed that China’s iron ore imports in the first 10 months jumped 16.5 percent from a year earlier to 778.4 million tons. But the import value fell 5.3 percent year on year to US$82 billion.
In the January-October period, the average price of iron ore imports tumbled 19.8 percent year on year to 646.90 yuan.
China has been one of the top net importers of crude oil and iron ore, which made up 11.3 percent and 5.4 percent of the country’s total imports in 2013 respectively.
If crude oil and iron ore prices stay at current levels for the rest of this year, China could save around US$4.5 billion per month compared with a year ago, according to a Merrill Lynch report.
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