affected by factors such as the new crown epidemic in the first half of this year, domestic polymeric mdi manufacturers have lowered their production loads. according to the statistics of tiantian xiaobian, from january to may this year, the overall operating load of domestic mdi manufacturers was about 50%, and the theoretically calculated output compared with the same period last year showed a significant year-on-year decrease. how about the import of polymeric mdi in the same period? the following is a brief analysis for everyone:
import volume:
from january to may 2020, the total import volume of domestic polymeric mdi increased by 14% year-on-year. in terms of months, from january to february, the total import volume of polymeric mdi was basically the same as that of the same period last year. in march, mainly due to the sluggish domestic nstream demand, imports fell by nearly 10% year-on-year. in april and may, the year-on-year growth rate of polymeric mdi imports turned from negative to positive, and the growth rate in may expanded compared with that in april, reaching more than 60%.
figure 1: 2019/january-may 2020 domestic imports of polymeric mdi (unit: tons) 
data source: organized by tiantian chemical network
main import source countries
let us look at the main import source countries again. saudi arabia, south korea and japan have been the main import sources of domestic aggregated mdi in recent years. from january to may 2020, the imports of polymeric mdi from these three countries accounted for more than 90% of the total imports. among them, the import of polymeric mdi from south korea increased by 80% year-on-year. in the past june, the import volume from korean manufacturers is expected to increase compared with the same period last year, and the increase is mainly from the supply of manufacturers. in addition, saudi arabia is the largest source of domestically imported polymeric mdi, and nearly 40% of the polymeric mdi is from saudi arabia. from january to may this year, the import volume from saudi arabia also increased by 8% year-on-year.
in contrast, the import of polymeric mdi from japan has a year-on-year decrease of nearly 20%. the main reason is that the ruian factory has been shut n since the beginning of february, resulting in a sharp reduction in the import of mdi mother liquor imported from japan.
figure 2: 2019/2020 january-may 2019/2020, domestic polymeric mdi import source countries and import volume (unit: tons) 
source of data: organized by tiantian chemical network
import price
corresponding to the year-on-year increase in import volume is the decline in import price. according to statistics, from january to may 2020, the import unit price of polymeric mdi from the top three import source countries (saudi arabia, japan and south korea) all decreased year-on-year, with an average decrease of about 23%.
figure 3: 2019/2020 january-may import unit price of domestic polymeric mdi (unit: usd/ton) 
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data source: organized by tiantian chemical network
as a comparison, in figure 4 below, we put the year-on-year growth rate of the quotation (average price) of the domestic aggregated mdi market in the same period. it can be seen from the figure that from march to april, the year-on-year decrease in the import price of imported goods in us dollars was lower than the decrease in domestic market quotations. however, there has been an inversion since may, which is related to the adjustment of the supply strategy and pricing strategy of korean manufacturers.
figure 4: comparison of the import unit price of polymeric mdi and the year-on-year growth rate of the domestic market price from january to may 2019/2020 (unit: %)
data source: organized by tiantian chemical industry network
