China’s national holiday early in October was evident in both lower imports and exports of nearly all the products followed. Volume declines were generally typical for this period. Imports of a few basic chemicals increased: EDC, ethylene, methanol and propylene.

The impressive gains on China’s imports in August were followed by slowdowns in both September and October.  A particularly steep decline was seen on imports of MEG, which had hit an all-time new high in September of 701 K tons and which dropped to 558 K tons in October.

Imports in October of EDC, ethylene, methanol and propylene were up substantially from September.

We expect the last two months of this year to be a period of substantially higher imports of many polymers and chemicals, as imports tend to surge in the last two months of each year in advance of the Chinese New Year the following February.

[important]This information is from ITP’s newsletters on global trade in polymers and chemicals, available by subscription monthly or quarterly.[/important]

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