Chip imports to China fell markedly in 2022 amid US sanctions, especially in October

Chip imports to China fell by more than 13% from January to October, according to Chinese customs, as the world's largest semiconductor market is affected by the growing trade standoff between the US and the Middle Kingdom as well as a general economic slowdown.
Source image: TSMSZThe first 10 months of the year, China imported 458 billion integrated circuits, which is 13.2% less than the 527.9 billion chips imported into the country in the same period last year.
In October the decline in imports markedly accelerated - during the first 9 months of decline was an average of only 12.8%.Decrease in supply volumes is also due to the fact that in 2021 the import of integrated circuits took off - during the first 10 months of growth then was 21.2% year-on-year, so it is difficult to keep up with these figures now.
But despite the decline in the volume of imports, higher prices for chips led to an increase in the value of supplies during this period by 1.3%, leaving $351.2 billion.
In general, chips have long been a major item of imports to China, at one time by the value of purchases such imports overtook crude oil and consumer goods.
Nevertheless, it began to decline at the beginning of this year, the first year-on-year decline since 2020.
The drop in imports in October was 13.7% (to 41.1 billion) compared to October 2021.
By comparison, 47.6 billion chips were imported in September.
The accelerated decline in purchases comes amid Washington's strengthening of export controls and coincides with a global decline in demand for semiconductors as a whole.Source image: TSMC7 October, the Bureau of Industry and Security - a unit of the U.S.
Department of Commerce announced a series of measures to control technology exports to China aimed at weakening the Chinese high-performance semiconductor sector - not only exports to the Middle Kingdom chips themselves, but also equipment for their manufacture, special permits for the production of semiconductors, and a number of other measures.
At the same time, the value of sold year-on-year increased by 6.2%.
The problem may be partly related to the outbreak of coronavirus in the country - due to sanitary restrictions, the ability to fulfill orders was also affected.