China imported 2,350t of refined tin in January, according to the latest data from China Customs. This was up by 46% year-on-year and also 23% higher than imports in December. There has not been any profitable arbitrage space from last October for the general import trade, which requires payments of 3% duty and 17% VAT. The big import volume is therefore likely to be contributed by the processing trade, where taxes are refunded on exported products. China only exported 2.4t refined tin in January according to the official data.
China imported very large quantities of tin ore and concentrate in January. The gross weight was a surprising 17,661t, which is the 12 times higher than a year ago. Myanmar accounted for close to 17,000t of the total. Myanmar has been a major tin raw materials supplier for China, but the grade of tin concentrate in Myanmar is usually very low. Sometimes, unprocessed ore is imported by China from Myanmar.
