China's exports in the January-February period again fell from a year earlier, customs data showed, while imports also decreased again and at a faster rate, reflecting a slowdown in the global economy and weak domestic demand.
Exports in the two months were 6.8% lower than a year before, beating a Reuters a poll that expected exports to decrease by 9.4%. Imports were down by 10.2%, missing the poll estimate by a large margin, which had predicted a 5.5% drop.
KEY POINTS:
* Crude oil: Jan-Feb imports at 84.06 mt, down 1.3% y/y
* Iron ore: Jan-Feb imports at 194 mt, up 7.3% y/y
* Soybeans: Jan-Feb imports at 16.17 mt, up 16.1% y/y
* Copper: Jan-Feb imports at 879,000 tonnes, down 9.3% y/y
Preliminary table of commodity trade data
Below are comments from analysts on the commodities data.
Comment on iron ore
PEI HAO, SHANGHAI-BASED SENIOR ANALYST FROM FIS, AN INTERNATIONAL BROKERAGE FIRM
"The year-on-year rise is in line with our expectation. Some miners shipped more volumes (of iron ore cargoes) in middle to late December 2022 to catch up with their annual targets. And, this seemed to have been well reflected in the import number for January-February."
"The March import volumes may be lower than the average of January-February, but a year-on-year increase is also expected."
Comment on copper
LYNN ZHAO, SHANGHAI-BASED COMMODITY STRATEGIST AT MACQUARIE:
"We had expected copper imports to decline year-on-year in January-February with closed arbitrage. We are seeing copper demand picking up into March across most of the end-user sectors though largely seasonally."
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, iron ore and soybeans.
(Reporting by Asia Commodities and Energy team; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
