What was the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China’s imports of marble blocks and slabs from Italy in 2020?
China’s marble blocks and slabs imports from Italy fell sharply in 2020. According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China, the COVID-19 pandemic and year-round lockdowns resulted in a significant decline of imports. Specifically, between 2019 – 2020, a decrease of -27.51% in value is recorded and -30.56% in the quantity of imports of China’s marble blocks and slabs from Italy.
In the Table below we see the monthly changes (%) of China’s marble blocks and slabs imports from Italy between 2019 – 2020.
In the Table we see how the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown affected imports. Taking into account the time required for transport from Italy to China and customs clearance, between the first quarter 2019 – 2020 imports recorded an increase in value by + 18.56% and a decrease in quantity by -7.36%. In the second and third quarters (April – September) a rapid decline was recorded while in the fourth quarter imports showed great improvement but remained lower than in 2019. Note that the large increase recorded in imports at the end of the year, between November – December , helped curb the annual decline.
The months with the highest imports for 2020 were January and September while the lowest were July and May.
* The statistics are derived from the analysis of the Tariff Class Codes – Harmonized System (HS) Codes:
25151100: Marble & travertine, crude or roughly trimmed.
25151200: Marble & travertine, merely cut into a square / rectangular blocks / slabs.
*Due to consistent data flow, statistics may alter during the year
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