China’s imports of iron ore and concentrate dipped 0.6% in March from a year earlier to 85.91 million mt, according to data from the General Administration of Customs released on Tuesday.

A total of 86 vessels carrying 13.43 million mt of iron ore arrived at major Chinese ports during March 29 to April 4, SMM estimates.

Social inventories of lead ingots in China continued to trend downsides this week, but the decline slowed down from a week ago due to rising supplies of secondary lead.

The combined iron ore shipments from Australia and Brazil remained in a steady upward trend and this is likely to lift the arrivals at Chinese ports in the near term

Zinc inventories in China continued to fall over the weekend, propelled by declines in east and north China where downstream consumers were keen to make purchases. SMM data showed that social inventories of refined zinc ingots across Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Hebei stood at 304,000 mt as of Monday March 30, down 3,000 mt from Friday March 27 and 20,000 mt from Monday March 23.

Inventories of steel rebar across Chinese steelmakers and social warehouses fell for the second consecutive week as of March 26 on the back of improved downstream purchases. However, the overall inventories remained significantly higher than the same period after the Chinese New Year holiday last year, which threatens some downside risk in spot rebar prices. SMM expects the overall inventories to return to levels of the previous year only around mid-May.

Inventories of aluminium billet in China fell for the third consecutive week as of March 26, due to stable deliveries and reduced arrivals.

Imports of Australian iron ore and concentrate were 0.84% higher on the year, standing at 106.9 million mt.

Social inventories of long steel (including wire rods and rebar) in Guangzhou fell 4.24% in the week ended March 25 to 2.3 million mt, 25.49% higher than the same period after the Lunar New Year holiday last year, showed SMM data.

SMM estimates that there were 67 vessels carrying 11.61 million mt of iron ore arrived at major Chinese ports during March 1-7, up 1.93 million mt from the week ended February 29 and up 790,000 mt from the same period a year earlier.