In 2023, China′s import volume of raw salt has decreased. In the first half of the year, due to the relatively high operating price of the domestic raw salt market, the inflow of imported raw salt continued to increase. However, in the second half of the year, with the increase in production in the main sea salt production areas in China, the supply of domestic market goods was sufficient, and the volume of new imported salt transactions decreased. In November and December, India began to produce a large amount of salt, while the autumn harvesting work of domestic sea salt was coming to an end, leading to an increase in China′s import volume of raw salt.

China′s imported salt mainly comes from India, Australia, and Mexico. Additionally, a small portion of the source comes from Pakistan, Chile, the United States and other places. In 2023, China′s total import volume of salt was 9.085 million tons, with an average import price of US$44.7/ton. Based on the average exchange rate of the US dollar in the same period, the import price at the port was 356 yuan/ton, while the domestic average delivery price was 394 yuan/ton. With comprehensive logistics and storage costs, the overall delivery price of imported salt was slightly lower than the average factory price of domestic raw salt. Although the price advantage of domestic imported salt delivery has weakened, downstream industries such as soda ash and caustic soda still have relatively high demand for imported industrial salt.