Customs statistics are depressing: phones from China have been brought to us by half, and laptops have almost completely stopped. Everything else is also in the hard minus. You can only be happy for the road builders and aluminum tycoons. Well, for the seal cubs, although for them – on a different occasion.
ShareIf you look at the picture in the narrow perspective of the post-February economy, there are reasons for optimism when studying the volume of imports from China. So, despite all the difficulties, imports are growing rapidly for three months in a row, following they fell sharply in April-March.
Those who know better than ordinary people regarding the state of affairs emphasize that the whole mess with sanctions was superimposed on the next wave of coronavirus in China, the fight once morest which severely hampered production and logistics there. And the fact that we are now seeing growth relative to April is, among other things, a consequence of the country’s exit from strict quarantine measures.
Additionally, it is worth noting that December and January were record-breaking in the history of trade relations between China and Russia. There were so many imports from there that it was quite enough for the first months of the sanctions to pass with virtually no shortage on the shelves.
But in general, the picture is bleak. If we talk regarding what is happening here and now, and not in the distant and almost forgotten January, then a short summary: everything is bad.
In just one month – June – Russia lost a billion dollars worth of goods from China. First of all, losses in the line of high-tech equipment – smartphones, computers, laptops and tablets. There, the reduction is multiple, and in some places – by an order of magnitude. In total, in the first half of the year, Russia missed regarding 5 million smartphones and regarding 600 thousand laptops.
This is how much you can estimate the shortage of portable equipment in our market. There is absolutely nothing to replace her. The second largest supplier, Vietnam, accounted for only 16 % imports (to China – 76 %), and this year this channel has almost completely disappeared.
However, once morest the general negative background, there are reasons for pride. Yes, the volume of clothing supplies fell sharply – immediately 13 %. But on the other hand, shoes, on the contrary, increased by 10 %. It was not possible to compensate for the losses in dollars, but the number of sneakers and boots objectively increased – plus 10 million pairs. And more importantly, the average price for them has hardly increased ($7.37 per pair in 2021 and $7.39 in 2022).
A number of indicators give only a false reason for joy. As, for example, the indicator of imports of passenger cars, which jumped by 8,3 % – in dollars. Where the catch is – it’s easy to guess if you look at imports in pieces: 64 with a little thousand cars. This is 4,200 cars less than a year earlier. This means that all our growth is solely due to the price tag.
If a year ago, passenger cars from China cost an average of 9.5 thousand dollars, now they cost 11.1 thousand. Well, honestly, when we were in March, looking at how, one following another, Western concerns announced the cessation of supplies to Russia, they predicted a sharp increase in sales of the Chinese auto industry, we were not expecting this, oh, not this …
But in the cargo sector – a complete and unconditional victory of import substitution. a threefold increase in dollars gives almost a threefold increase in pieces. Yes, the average price of a truck has increased by 16 % (now it is 48.6 thousand per car), but we can state that most of the demand for imported equipment is now covered by China.
Thus, according to the results of the first half of last year, 15.5 thousand trucks were imported into the country, of which only 20 % were Chinese. Now we are talking regarding 9.5 thousand units from China, that is, two-thirds of the needs. But there are also deliveries from Belarus and, in general, non-enemy Thailand, which together last year sent more than 5 thousand trucks to Russia in the first six months. If those deliveries haven’t stopped, truck consumers can take a breather. True, if you do not take into account the difficulties with the domestic production of trucks.
Not everything is in order with another sector of the car market – with spare parts. Against the backdrop of a sharp drop in the supply of original components, one might expect a revival in the Chinese direction. But we see a decline, and a noticeable one – on 9 %. However, one must understand that a significant part of this flow was components for Russian assembly plants. Which, respectively, stopped exactly because of the very same thing – the cessation of supplies. Whether this is due to political decisions or it is all regarding problems with logistics and fluctuations in the ruble exchange rate is not so important. The main thing is that there are fewer spare parts in the country.
Among the main beneficiaries of the Russian-Chinese sanctions friendship, of course, it is necessary to single out Russian aluminum plants. Due to the stoppage of supplies of raw materials from the usual directions, imports of aluminum oxide from China increased 500 times at once. In just six months, 472 thousand tons of it were brought to us for quite tangible 241 million dollars. A year earlier, not even a thousand tons and a whole million were collected.
As for losses, which from some angle can be considered a victory of good over evil, it is worth paying attention to the position under the customs code 43031010. A year ago, 761 thousand units of this good were brought to us from China for a total of $521 million. This year – full seams: only 160 thousand and a miserable 114 million dollars. You’ll never guess what it’s regarding. The editors themselves were shocked: “CLOTHES FROM THE SKINS OF HARP SEALS OR HOOKHLAK BABY”. It is difficult to understand whether we are really talking regarding 160 thousand hats and coats made of fur coats, or whether this is some kind of failure, or these figures should be read somehow in an expanded sense – they say, fur things in general, and not just this one. But we double-checked that the Chinese customs department has in mind exactly this position – specifically, the seal and the hooded seal. One can only rejoice that the vicissitudes in the economy are reducing the supply and demand for clothing from them.
On all other points, good, of course, is not enough.
Denis Lebedev, Fontanka.ru
