China’s Bulging Commodity Stockpiles Show Depth of Economic Woes
- Coal inventories rocket higher after power supply scares
- Soybean demand has disappointed as economy has slowed
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Inventories of key raw materials are piling up in China, evidence that economic activity remains too feeble to clear a surplus that’s crushing prices from steel to soybeans.
The government’s growth target for the year looks increasingly out of reach, an unwelcome development for the drillers, miners and farmers that supply the world’s biggest importer of commodities. The blowout in stockpiles might suggest that some traders were caught out by the economy’s poor performance since the end of the pandemic. Others may have underestimated the extent of China’s pivot from the old economy to the new.