BEIJING -- Growth in Chinese imports has slowed for a second consecutive month, adding to signs the nation's appetite for raw materials might not be as extensive as once thought.
Imports of goods in September were up 21.3% in dollar terms from a year earlier, China's customs agency said Monday. That compared with a 23.1% gain in August and 33.7% in July. For the months at the beginning of 2008, year-on-year import growth averaged nearly 30%.
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At the same time the pace of imports is slowing, growth in export shipments remained largely stable. Customs figures showed a 21.5% year-on-year gain in September versus 21.1% in August.
The surge in commodity prices early this year added substantively to China's import bill, so the recent decline in global commodity prices is likely responsible for some of the slowdown. But the numbers also seem to reflect a cooling of China's domestic economy.
Steel production, for example, has slowed sharply and the level of new construction has dropped.
"This is a sign that growth is slowing, but we can't exaggerate the significance of it," said Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist for Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong. "Commodity prices are collapsing, so it makes a lot of sense for Chinese commodity buyers to be stepping back at least temporarily."
Just as China's boom drove some of the rise in raw-material costs, reassessments of likely Chinese demand during a potential global recession have also contributed to the recent fall in world prices. While China's overall economic growth is generally expected to slow only to near 9% this year, compared with more than 10% in recent years, that could still mean significantly reduced demand for commodities.
Those price declines and the weakness in China's imports have had another consequence: the renewed expansion of the nation's already-huge trade surplus.
The surplus shrank for the first two quarters of this year, but grew again in the quarter ending Sept. 30, rising 12% to $82 billion. In fact, the surplus for September alone -- $29.3 billion -- was a record high for a single month.
And with the economic outlook for China's big markets of the U.S., Europe and Japan all worsening, analysts expect exports to slow more sharply in coming months.
That, in turn, could feed into further weakening of import demand, as much of China's imports are parts and raw materials used to manufacture goods for export.
Energy demand, at least, doesn't seem to be dropping. Partial figures released by Customs suggest China imported about 15 million tons of crude oil in September, which would be in line with recent growth trends.
Industry analysts believe Chinese refiners last month may well have taken advantage of lower crude oil prices, which fell about 13% in September from August, to refill their depleted inventories.
That likely reflects that the slowdown in China's domestic economy now seems to be concentrated in the real estate sector, which drives demand for metals, such as copper for electrical wire and steel for construction.
The China Iron & Steel Association says domestic steel demand in August shrank 6% from a year earlier; media reports say the association is coordinating reductions in output.
Write to Andrew Batson at andrew.batson@wsj.com
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