China Watch -- Iron ore imports

Do you really trust the statistics coming out of China?  

Watching the periphery and seeing what is going into and out of China mitigates any 'massaging' by the Chinese abacus crunchers. 

Since China imports quite a bit of iron ore, observing their monthly trade flows on this important basic commodity can provide a peek into what is going on in the Middle Kingdom.

 Bloomberg - Chinese ore imports shows their importation of iron ore.  You can see the large recent spike in imports.  The increase is above trendline over the past several years.

h/t to MacroMan