Beijing, January 13 Slumping prices saved China more than $160 billion on its imports of commodities like oil, iron ore, coal and copper last year, official figures showed today. Slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy has hammered global raw materials prices, sending shockwaves through resource-rich producer countries from Australia to Zambia. But the falls have proved a boon to China itself, which is reportedly taking advantage of low costs to stockpile oil. The average price of China’s oil imports plummeted 45.3 per cent in 2015 on the previous year, Customs Spokesman Huang Songping said, with volumes rising 8.8 per cent to 335.5 million tonnes. Overall, China spent $134.5 billion on crude oil imports during the year. The quantity it bought was a record, Bloomberg News reported. Iron ore imports were up 2.2 per cent by volume and totalled $57.6 billion by value — but on average cost 39 per cent less than in 2014. Copper imports were flat by quantity but 17.1 per cent cheaper per tonne. Coal prices also dropped 21.8 per cent, with volumes of the fuel also slumping by 29.9 per cent. For the full year, China’s imports slumped 14.1 per cent by value on 2014 to $1.68 trillion, Customs said, while exports were down 2.8 per cent to $2.28 trillion.