China’s unwrought aluminium and semis exports fall 15.4% Y-o-Y in 1Q2023; downtrend likely to continue

According to China customs data, Chinese unwrought aluminium and aluminium semis exports in March 2023 amounted to 497,000 tonnes, bringing the total exports of the first quarter to 1.38 million tonnes. The monthly exports in March’23 registered a year-on-year fall of 16.3 per cent, while the export volume in Q1 decreased by 15.4 per cent.

In tandem with the drop in volume, the export value also fell by 23.8 per cent over a year to $4.94 billion in 1Q2023 ended March 31.

In the entire year of 2022, China exported 6.6 million tonnes of unwrought aluminium and aluminium semis, up by 17.5 pent Y-o-Y. That stood a new record high, attributed to higher LME aluminium prices than SHFE, leading to better profit from exports. This, coupled with growing overseas demand, boosted China’s aluminium semis exports, with significant growth in the first half of 2022.

However, in the first half of 2022, the export volume posted a fall of 9.4 per cent Y-o-Y due to overseas economic recession.

SMM predicts the downtrend in China’s unwrought aluminium and aluminium semis exports to continue in April 2023.