BEIJING: China has issued its latest round of import permits for scrap paper and plastics, and approved volumes remain particularly low on the plastics side.
Meanwhile, a separate data set shows stark year-over-year declines in imports during the first two months of 2018.
The most recent permits, the 10th round this year from China, were issued Monday. They approve the import of 649,642 metric tons of recovered fiber and 1,708 metric tons of scrap plastic. That brings the total approved tonnages for the year to 9,665,227 metric tons of scrap paper and 48,390 metric tons of scrap plastic as of April 16.
Import permits allow companies to bring in a certain quota of material. Permits are issued in batches periodically throughout the year, often at twice-monthly intervals. Actual import volumes up to a given date do not necessarily correspond with the permit tonnages approved to that point.
Import data from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council shows China had imported 2.51 million metric tons of recovered paper and roughly 10,000 metric tons of scrap plastic in January and February. Those figures cover imports from all countries into China.
