BEIJING, May 18 (Reuters) - China's aluminium imports fell 37.7% in April from the same month a year earlier as overseas prices rose and domestic consumption weakened, government data showed on Wednesday.
Imports of unwrought aluminium and products, including primary metal and unwrought, alloyed aluminium, stood at 175,289 tonnes last month, down from 281,139 tonnes in April 2021 and fell 11.1% from March.
China, the world's top aluminium producer and consumer, has imported less than 200,000 tonnes of the metal for four straight months, as an arbitrage window for cheaper overseas metal shut and downstream demand faltered in the face of the country's COVID-19 outbreak.
In comparison, China's exports of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products rose 36.5% from a year earlier to 596,863 tonnes in April, the data from the General Administration of Customs showed.
Imports of bauxite, the main aluminium ore source, came in at 11.13 million tonnes last month, down 4.9% from March and compared with 8.74 million tonnes a year earlier.
(Reporting by Min Zhang and Dominique Patton; Editing by Neil Fullick and Louise Heavens)
