Focus on Chinese trade

摘要

In this month's special feature, we take a look at changes to China's trade flows of all the base metals, and the important impact the country is having on supply and demand across the board. Aluminium: Primary supply to the western world will fall... Chinese net exports of primary aluminium fell 67 percent year-on-year in January and data for February shows that the decline continued for a second consecutive month. This is largely due to the 15 percent tax that is now levied on exports, which makes shipping metal abroad uneconomic at the current time. These declines in exports come hand in hand with large SHFE stock builds of 80,795 tonnes since the beginning of the year and huge growth in Chinese smelter output of 35 percent year-on-year in January and 33 percent in February. So far, the impact on western world availability has been minimal, though we believe that China's reluctance to export in recent months is part of the reason why arrivals onto LME warrant during the period of wide backwardation was much smaller than has been in the past.