China's unwrought aluminium trade landscape in 2025 shows imports on the rise, climbing to 2.1 million tonnes in the first half of the year, which is a 2.4 per cent increase compared to the same time last year. This growth is largely driven by robust demand from the construction and transportation sectors, along with increased bauxite inflows by 18.2 per cent year-on-year ensuring a steady supply of raw materials. However, exports face hurdles, totalling 272.9 thousand tonnes during the same period. While this marks a slight recovery from last year, exports are still grappling with changing global demand trends, likely India’s anti dumping duties, US tariff conflicts and so on, price fluctuations and various regulatory challenges.
Year-to-date: China's imports of unwrought aluminium
Globally, in the first half of 2025, China imported 2.1 million tonnes, showing a slight increase of 2.4 per cent compared to the 2.0 million tonnes imported during the same time in 2024. This growth stands in stark contrast to the previous year, where imports skyrocketed by 69.2 per cent from 1.2 million tonnes in the first half of 2023.
5 years of China's unwrought aluminium imports
In 2024, China imported 3.3 million tonnes, a notable increase from 2.7 million tonnes in 2023, marking a 25.2 per cent rise compared to the previous year. The year before that, imports surged by 37.5 per cent, jumping from 1.9 million tonnes in 2022. However, 2022 itself had seen a drop of 28.8 per cent after reaching 2.7 million tonnes in 2021, which had previously grown by 18.9 per cent from 2.3 million tonnes in 2020.
Year-to-date: Top countries supply unwrought aluminium to China
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