According to the China Customs, China’s polypropylene (PP) imports declined by 22.56 per cent Y-o-Y to 324,127 metric tons in July 202 compared to the same period of last year. However, the imports increased by 3.49 per cent M-o-M. Of all, imports of homo PP imports declined 22.69 per cent Y-o-Y to 213.4kt, imports of co PP declined 26.21 per cent Y-o-Y to 95.5kt while imports ofra co PP increased by 16.02 per cent Y-o-Y to 15.2kt.

The total export volume of PP in Jul 2022 was about 114.2kt, a year-on-year increase of 67.61 per cent; among which the export of homo PP was about 104.7kt, a year-on-year increase of 74.52 per cent.

From the monthly data, the export volume of homo PP has continued to decrease in the past three months. The main reason is that the price spread between RMB market and PP CFR China market continues to narrow, and the export arbitrage window shrinks or even closes (for example, at the end of July, the RMB price has once exceeded the PP CFR China price).

From the perspective of trading partners, the main sources of imports are South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Japan and Singapore, with a total import volume of more than 60 per cent, and the ranking has basically remained unchanged in the past three months. Overall, the import situation is relatively stable.