Why Silver Imports into China Reached Record Levels in March 2026

According to data from the Customs Authority in China, imports of silver into the country jumped 173% when compared to the average imports of the metal over the past decade. This makes last month’s silver imports the highest ever recorded in the history of the country. We analyze the factors behind this rush for the metal and what it means for investors.

Broadly speaking, this buying spree was driven by two distinct groups of buyers, and those two are totally unrelated.

The first group was made up of investors. In China, it is traditional for investors to hold physical metals that are a good store of value. The main metals that fit this bill are gold and silver. Last year, gold prices surged and even reached $5,500 per ounce. The high price of gold squeezed many investors out of the gold market because they couldn’t afford to add it to their portfolios at those elevated prices.

Consequently, the Chinese investor demand shifted to silver bars as the metal’s price made it affordable for those who had been priced out of the gold market. As more investors bought silver, demand for silver imports skyrocketed in China and contributed to the record levels witnessed in March.

The other group that triggered record silver imports into China was industrial users of the metal. The force behind increased industrial use of silver is the looming end of rebates on solar panel exports due to take effect on April 1. Manufacturers raced to make and export as many solar panels as possible before it became more costly for them to export those clean energy products.

This frontloading is similar to the way copper traders raced to ship as much copper into the U.S. as possible before expected tariffs on the metal kicked in. that frontloading of copper caused inventories in the U.S. to spike while shortages were experienced in other markets.

In the case of silver, Chinese manufacturers raced to make solar panels, and that means that what they would have produced over several months was compressed into March production in order to reduce exposure to the export taxes that would start being levied on April 1.

As you can see, those two forces are not related in any way, but they converged to trigger massive imports of silver into China in March. So, what happens next?

Chinese investors are likely to continue adding silver to their portfolios given that gold is still very expensive for many of them. As for the industrial users of silver, the coming months could see reduced use of the metal in the production of solar panels because of the frontloading we described earlier.

Whether this drop in Chinese industrial demand for silver affects the metal’s price is hard to predict because spot prices of this metal are set by the LBMA and COMEX futures markets in London and New York, respectively.

It is therefore advisable to keep tabs on the broader drivers of the global silver market and not just what is happening in China. Entities like New Pacific Metals Corp. (NYSE American: NEWP) (TSX: NUAG) are likely to focus more on the longer-term outlook of silver since the metal has been in a structural deficit and temporal price swings don’t remove that overriding supply shortage.

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