There is a gap in trade data after Nauru turned to China: Phosphate ore imports will return to zero starting in 2025

The Pacific island nation of Nauro (formerly known as Nauru). (AP)

[Financial Channel/Comprehensive Report] After Nauro (formerly known as Nauru) severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan and switched to China in 2024, it thought it had reaped benefits, but the actual trade data showed an intriguing gap. Chinese customs data shows that natural phosphate rock was indeed imported from Naero in 2024. By the whole year of 2025 and from January to August 2026, the relevant import records had all returned to zero.

Phosphate rock was once the "golden hen" of Nuero, but now it is no longer in glory. This Pacific island country used to create a lot of wealth from its rich phosphate rock resources, and even once became a high-income country in the world. As high-quality phosphate rock is gradually depleted, the importance of the phosphate rock industry has also declined significantly. Nowadays, Nauero is still looking for new economic pillars, but the phosphate mine is still an important window for the outside world to observe the economic and trade relations between this country and China.

According to Chinese customs statistics, in 2024, China imported natural phosphate phosphate rock from Nauero, with the annual amount reaching US$8.295704 (approximately NT$260 million). Among them, one amount in September 2024 is US$4,328,025, and another amount in November is US$3,967,679. The total of the two amounts is the entire year's amount.

But in 2025, the situation suddenly changed. Using the same official query conditions of China Customs, the query from January to December 2025, China's import and trading partners were set to Nauero, and the product was targeted to natural phosphate phosphate rock, and the result showed "a total of 0 pieces of data were queried".

Checking again from January to August 2026, the result is still 0 transactions. This result is noteworthy because China does not import phosphate rock. China itself still has demand for phosphate rock and phosphorus chemical industry. What is really puzzling is: why was there still import of Naero phosphate rock in 2024, but suddenly dropped to zero in 2025, and has not recovered as of August 2026?

As for the claim that "China will buy 136,500 tons of Naero phosphate ore in 2025" that has appeared in the outside world, there is currently no original data that can be matched with China's customs import records. Where this number comes from is intriguing.