China’s aluminums imports in April rose 27.1% from a year earlier, customs data showed on Thursday, with domestic supply constrained by lingering power issues in the southwest.

The world’s biggest aluminums producer and consumer brought in 222,851 tones of unwrought aluminums and products – including primary metal and unwrought, alloyed aluminums – last month, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.

That compared to 175,289 tones imported in the same month of 2022 and 200,508 tones in March.

Imports in the first four months of the year totaled 797,602 tones, up 12.6% year-on-year, the data showed.

Domestic output in the southwestern province of Yunnan, China’s fourth-biggest producing province accounting for about 12% of the country’s total aluminums capacity, fell due to lower hydropower output.

“Rainfall…is still lower than levels in previous years,” analysts at Zijin Tianfeng Futures said in a report this week.

“Even if the situation improves to some degree, we do not expect to see a large-scale production resumption in the region in the short run.”

China’s April aluminum output rose just 0.8% from a year earlier, official data showed on Tuesday, with a 54.5% year-on-year jump in passenger vehicle sales partly driving the need for higher aluminum imports.

Imports of bauxite, a key raw material for aluminum products, totaled 12 million tones last month, the customs data showed.

That was down 0.4% from 12.05 million tones in March but up 7.7% from 11.13 million tones in April 2022.

Total imports climbed by 8.8% on the year to 47.64 million tones over January-April.

Source: Reuters (Reporting by Siyi Liu, Amy Lv and Dominique Patton