Spending on infrastructure rises and there are signs of less weakness in property investment
China’s economic recovery appears to be on track, but is unevenly spread across sectors, which is likely to result in a similar pattern for its imports of major commodities.
Also key for commodity demand was the 9.0% jump in infrastructure investment in the first two months, but this was somewhat offset by a 5.7% drop in property investment, although this was an improvement on the decline of 10% for 2022 as a whole. This would put daily imports in a range between 3.03-million and 3.22-million tonnes, slightly below the official customs figure of 3.29-million tonnes for the first two months of 2023. However, it is worth noting that the January-February outcome was the strongest on a daily basis since September 2022.
The iron ore imports for the first quarter and the steel output data for the January-February period do suggest increasing activity, but they are not so strong as to point to a huge rebound in China’s economy. Rather, the data seems to be broadly supportive of a solid start in achieving China’s stated economic growth target of 5% for 2023.
It is likely that China’s crude imports will accelerate from the second quarter onwards as the country continues to reopen after abandoning its strict zero-Covid policy.
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