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China's monthly imports of Russian products including energy hit a record high in April, with Beijing defying mounting Western pressure to distance itself from Moscow following its decision to invade Ukraine.
The value of imports from Russia - which has been hit by a barrage of sanctions by the United States and its allies - rose to a new high of US$8.89 billion in April, up 56.6 per cent from a year earlier and 13.3 per cent above March, according to South China Morning Post calculations based on data of the General Administration of Customs.
Monday's official trade data did not provide a breakdown of imports, but a large chunk of Chinese purchases are believed to be oil and gas.
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China imported 43 million metric tonnes of crude oil in April, an increase of 6.6 per cent from a year earlier. The total volume of crude imports for the January-April period dropped by 4.8 per cent to 171 million metric tonnes.
However, the average import price was 70.3 per cent higher than April 2021, according to Post calculations based on customs figures.
Exports to Russia last month dropped by 25.9 per cent from a year earlier to US$3.8 billion, after a 7.7 per cent year on year fall in March, customs data showed. Last month's figure was 0.6 per cent lower than March.
The decline in exports slowed overall bilateral trade growth to 17.5 per cent in April from 54.9 per cent in January.
Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura, said the decline suggests "Russia's economy may have fallen further into contractionary territory last month amid the unprecedented sanctions from Western countries".
Beijing has faced strong pressure to publicly condemn Russia's military aggression and the US has warned of "consequences" if China violates sanctions against Moscow.
China has called for diplomacy and negotiation to end the war, while trying to maintain normal trade relations with both Russia and Ukraine.
Analysts attributed the divergence between export and import growth to rising international energy prices and pragmatism from Beijing.
Some 70 per cent of Chinese crude oil is bought from overseas and last year about 79.6 million metric tonnes, or 15.5 per cent of all crude imports, were from Russia.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, a senior China economist of Capital Economics, said the pick-up in value of Russian imports could largely be explained by higher energy prices.