China registered fall in monthly coal import to 18.8 MnT in Apr’16. Besides, the country’s yearly coal import fell sharply by over 6% in the month.
China, the world’s largest coal importer, registered a significant fall of 5% in its monthly coal import during Apr’16. The country imported about 18.8 MnT of coal in the month with a drop of 0.89 MnT compared to Mar’16, according to data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC).
Chinese coal import has been falling consistently since 2015, and so far in 2016. But, speed of falling coal import seems to have slowed now as witnessing few positive Y-o-Y growth such as in March; noted a sharp rise by 15.6% on yearly basis.
China’s import of coal, including lignite, thermal and metallurgical coal, recorded a fall of 6% Y-o-Y in Apr’16. Fall in import was majorly driven by rising domestic coal production, which might limited demand for imported coal.
In the 1st four months of 2016, the country’s coal import (coal and lignite) reached to about 67.2 MnT, reporting steep declination of 2.5% compared to the same period of 2015. 
Source: SteelMint Quantity in MnT
In general, China imports about 96% of non-coking coal from its conventional sources. During Jan’16-Mar’16, import of top five major supplier countries viz Australia assessed at 14.45 MnT, Indonesia at 6.2 MnT, North Korea at 5.5 MnT, Russia at 3.8 MnT and Mongolia at 4.2 MnT.
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