According to data from Chinese customs, China's polymer imports rose 15.8% month over month in July. Year over year, imports gained 0.9% in July. Homo-PP, PP copolymer and LDPE posted strong year over year gains, while imports of PVC and PS were down year over year in July.
Homo-PP imports jumped 24% month over month in July to reach 331,000 tons. When compared with July 2010, homo-PP imports increased 11.5%. South Korea (81,539 tons), India (49,690 tons), Saudi Arabia (44,728 tons), Taiwan (40,966 tons) and the United Arab Emirates (20,423 tons) were the largest homo-PP exporters to China in July. Imports of Indian homo-PP shot up 84.8% from June, pushing India from the fourth largest homo-PP exporter to China in June to the second largest exporter in July.
Imports of PP copolymeralso posted strong year over year gains, rising 20% month over month and 27.7% when compared with July 2010 to reach 60,000 tons. China's largest sources of imported PP copolymer in July were South Korea (20,810 tons), Singapore (14,367 tons), Saudi Arabia (5,066 tons), Taiwan (5,008 tons) and Thailand (4,419 tons).
LDPE imports rose 22.7% month over month in July to reach 119,000 tons. The July import figure was also 38.4% higher when compared with the import figures from July 2010. LLDPE imports gained 17% from June and 4.9% from July 2010 to reach 172,000 tons while HDPE imports gained 7.3% from June but fell 3.5% from July 2010 to reach 251,000 tons. South Korea was the largest HDPE exporter to China in July with 49,731 tons while Saudi Arabia led all LLDPE exporters to China with 38,650 tons. Iran was the largest LDPE exporter to China in July with exports of 25,108 tons.
PVC imports to China were flat from June at 60,000 tons in July. China's July PVC imports were down 36.2% when compared with July 2010 and marked the lowest PVC import figure for July reported in the past ten years. Taiwan (18,221 tons), the United States (16,377 tons) and Japan (15,956 tons) combined to account for nearly 85% of all PVC imported to China in July.
China imported 81,000 tons of PS in July, an increase of 11% from June but a drop of 10% when compared with July 2010. The largest PS exporters to China in July were Taiwan (25,660 tons), South Korea (17,827 tons) and Hong Kong (16,068 tons), with these three countries combining to account for nearly 75% of all PS imports to China.
