China's coal imports hit a record 5.72 million tons in March, up 37.4 percent from a year earlier, as suppliers exploited cheap shipping and the lack of an annual deal between China's big power firms and coal miners.
The data, published by China's General Administration of Customs, showed a fifth month of coal import increases. The previous peak was 5.67 million tons in February 2007.
"The surge in coal imports is mostly because prices in the international markets are cheaper. It's likely that both thermal coal and coking coal imports rose in March," said Henry Liu, an analyst at Macquarie Bank.
Exports in March jumped 58 percent from the previous month, to 2.27 million tons, bringing the total imports in the first three months of the year to 7.38 million tons, down 27.6 percent from a year earlier, the customs data also showed.
China's four State-owned exporters, including Shenhua, China Coal, Shanxi Coal Import & Export Group and Minmetals, have not reached agreement with Japanese utilities on the annual term price for the Japanese fiscal year 2009, which start on April 1.