Italy’s Shipment Surge to China Confounds Experts: Supply Lines

Pandemic, war and geopolitics are changing global trade flows in ways both temporary and permanent. But precisely why Italian exports to China have jumped recently is a head scratcher even for the experts.

Shipments abroad rose above €3 billion in February, up 131% from a year earlier. This follows a jump of 137% the month before. For comparison, Italy exported about €1 billion of goods and services in January 2022 to the world’s No. 2 economy.

As Bloomberg reports here, one possible reason is Chinese demand for a UDCA, a chemical used mostly in liver drugs and that’s ...