EC China’s Staggering Demand For Commodities

>50% OF ALL STEEL, CEMENT, NICKEL, AND COPPER GOES THERE

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

It’s said that in China, a new skyscraper is built every five days.

China is building often, and they are building higher. In fact, just last year, China completed 77 of the world’s 144 new supertall buildings, spread through 36 different Chinese cities. These are structures with a minimum height of 656 feet (200 meters).

For comparison’s sake, there are only 113 buildings in New York City’s current skyline that are over 600 feet.

UNBELIEVABLE SCALE

It’s always hard to put China’s size and scope in perspective – and we’ve tried before by showing you 35 Chinese cities as big as countries, or highlighting the growing prominence of the domestic tech scene.

Today’s chart also falls in that category, and it focuses in on the raw materials that are needed to make all this growth possible.

Year of data Commodity China’s % of Global Demand Source 2017 Cement 59% Statista 2016 Nickel 56% Statista 2017 Coal 50% NAB 2016 Copper 50% Global X Funds 2017 Steel 50% World Steel Association 2017 Aluminum 47% MC Group 2016 Pork 47% OECD 2017 Cotton 33% USDA 2017 Rice 31% Statista 2017 Gold 27% China Gold Association, WGC 2017 Corn 23% USDA 2016 Oil 14% Enerdata

Note: Because this data is not all in one easy place, it is sourced from many different industry associations, banks, and publications. Most of the data comes from 2017, but some is from 2016.

CHINA DEMAND > WORLD

There are five particularly interesting commodity categories here – and in all of them, China’s demand equals or exceeds that of the rest of the world combined.