China’s imports of hardwood chips totalled a record 3.442 million bone dried metric tonnes (bdmt) over the three months to the end of November. Nine months after China’s trade data ‘went dark’ as part of its strategy in the trade war with the US, IndustryEdge has advised that limited data is once again being made available. Source: IndustryEdge for Timberbiz
Although the official data is not yet available for December, it appears likely that China’s total hardwood chip imports for 2018 will be close to 13 million bdmt. For the 11 months to November, China’s imports totalled a reported 11.861 million bdmt.
IndustryEdge has advised its clients that data is available for countries supplying China, but has not been supplied for the ports of delivery within China.
Vietnam supplied 5.866 million bdmt or 49.5% of the total, with Australia in a clear second place, delivering 3.765 million bdmt or 31.7% of the total. Third placed was Chile, whose 1.015 million bdmt was just 8.6% of the total.
The average landed import price in November 2018 was USDCif179.94/bdmt, which was dragged down by Vietnam’s USDCif151.82/bdmt. Australia’s average price for the month was USDCif211.65/bdmt, just two US pennies lower than the price from Chile.
An IndustryEdge analyst told Daily Timber News the market intelligence firm did not know when, or even if, port level data would be made available. It does appear that China has behaved consistently across all its imports, not only those of interest to the wood products and other manufacturing industries.
Because countries importing to China – like Australia – have continued reporting their data, there was little point in the Chinese authorities withholding the headline or national data. It is a different matter for the port level data, which is more refined and could indicate what facilities are receiving different types of resources. That data could be used in the modern cold war of global trade.
China’s export data is also again available, though the withholding of that information generally caused less concern than the import data. It remains to be seen whether the return to trade transparency is an indication of thawing trade relations between China and the United States.
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