Chinese tourists

    CHINESE tourists drove another record in the number of overseas visitors to New Zealand last month, the government statistics agency said yesterday.

    Visitor arrivals were up 11 percent year on year to 300,500 in November, with the biggest increase from China — up 35 percent to 36,700, according to Statistics New Zealand.

    Aluminum usage

    CHINA’S aluminum consumption will peak in 2020 as new industrial uses drive growth, said the vice president of a Chinese industry association, the website of China Securities Journal reported.

    Aluminum consumption will peak at 44 million tons a year, Wen Xianjun, vice president of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, told a forum, according to the report Sunday.

    Coal imports

    CHINA imported 6.23 million tons of coal from top supplier Australia in November, down 24.3 percent from the same month last year, customs data shows yesterday.

    Australian shipments have dipped 23.7 percent over the first 11 months of the year to 65.1 million tons, figures from the General Administration of Customs showed, hit by a downturn in demand and a massive domestic supply surplus.

    Overall imports, excluding low-grade lignite, stood at 12.42 million tons last month, down 27.45 percent. For the first 11 months, total imports hit 141.72 million tons, down 31.1 percent.