BEIJING- China’s exports to North Korea surged in 46.3 percent October from a month earlier, with foodstuffs including rice and sugar among the main items, though it shipped less COVID-related items except for rubber gloves, Chinese customs data showed on Sunday.
Totaling $132.43 million in October, China’s exports to North Korea were 2.5 times more than a year ago. Rice, polyethylene bags, sugar, textile material and tobacco were the main exports.
Exports of milled long rice to North Korea for the month totaled 16,450 tons, valued at $7.3 million, while for sugar they stood at nearly 8,000 tons, worth $4.5 million.
North Korea imported 1.47 million pairs of medical rubber gloves in October, compared with 400,000 pairs in September, the data showed, though imports of other COVID-19 protection merchandise, such as facial masks and thermometers, fell.
North Korea has not confirmed how many people have caught COVID, apparently because it lacks the means to conduct widespread testing.
Meanwhile, China’s coal imports from Russia continued to slip in October from the prior months, as logistics bottlenecks in Russia curbed supply and lower demand in China also capped appetite for the fossil fuel.
Arrivals of Russian coal last month were 6.43 million tons, down from 6.95 million tons in September and a record of 8.54 million tons in August, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Sunday.
But it was still 26 percent higher than the level in October 2021.
China has been snapping up cheap Russian coal after Western countries shunned trade with Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine.
But transport infrastructure limitations in Russia, following a spike of exports heading east towards Asia, slowed its coal supply to China.
Several Chinese traders said that all cargoes scheduled to load in 2022 were fully booked and the rail congestion made it impossible to add shipments.
China’s faltering economy also led to less power generation and industrial demand. In October, total power output dipped by 0.4 percent from September and grew only 1.3 percent from a year ago, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. That compares to a 3 percent year-on-year growth in October 2021.
Coal imports from Indonesia were 17.96 million tons last month, down 13 percent from September and up 15 percent from the same period last year, customs data showed.
Chinese coal-fired power generators favor low-quality brown coal from Indonesia for its cheap price as utilities struggle to pass high feedstock costs to downstream users, thanks to Beijing’s price caps on electricity.
A strong dollar and the recovery of domestic production, following some relaxations of COVID-19 curbs, also discouraged Chinese power plants to lift more overseas coal.
China’s exports and imports unexpectedly contracted in October, the first simultaneous slump since May 2020, as a perfect storm of COVID curbs at home and global recession risks dented demand and further darkened the outlook for a struggling economy.
The bleak data highlights the challenge for policymakers in China as they press on with pandemic prevention measures and try to navigate broad pressure from surging inflation, sweeping increases in worldwide interest rates and a global slowdown.
Outbound shipments in October shrank 0.3 percent from a year earlier, a sharp turnaround from a 5.7 percent gain in September, official data showed on Monday, and well below analysts’ expectations for a 4.3 percent increase. It was the worst performance since May 2020.
