China’s semiconductor imports declined 14.6% year on year in the first nine months of 2023, as the country braces for a new round of US tech export controls that the Biden administration will reportedly impose, reports the South China Morning Post. The number of integrated circuits (ICs) that China imported from January to September reached 355.9 billion units, down from 416.7 billion in the same period last year, according to data published by the General Administration of Customs on Friday.
The total value of IC imports in the past three quarters fell 19.8% year on year to $252.9 billion, which marked an improvement from the 26.7% drop in value in the first three months of the year. By comparison, the value of China’s overall imports saw a 7.5% decrease in the same nine-month period.
In the first three quarters of 2022 when there was tightness in the global semiconductor supply chain, China’s IC imports dropped 12.8% in volume, but saw a 1.5% increase in value.
