^The surveys underreport China's salt production, as both rely on statistics from China's National Statistics website. However, these figures do not account for much of the salt produced by captive salt plants serving the chemical industry. The actual production in 2012 was approximately 86 Mt. The gap between reported and actual total salt production has widened over the years. By 2023, China's total salt production reached 120 Mt, while the reported figure was only 52 Mt. This estimate is derived by calculating apparent production based on imports, exports, and consumption (consumption + imports - exports).
