China iron ore imports declined 9% in May

SHANGHAI, Jun 8 (SMM) – China’s imports of iron ore and concentrates shrank more than 9% to 87.03 million mt in May from a month earlier, according to data from the country’s General Administration of Customs released on Sunday.

That brought the tally for the first five months of 2020 to 44.53 million mt, up 5.1% from the same period last year.

In May, China’s imports of steel products, however, jumped more than 27% month on month to 1.28 million mt, marking an increase of 30.6% from the same month of 2019, according to data from China customs.

China’s steel products imports totalled 5.46 million mt for the January-to-May period, creating a year-over-year increase of 12%.

Customs data also showed that China exported 4.4 million mt of steel products last month, down 30.4% month on month and 23.3% year on year.

For the first five months of 2020, China’s exports of steel products came in at 25 million mt, down 14% from the same period a year earlier.