Column: China's soft economic data will mean lower commodity imports, but not yet

LAUNCESTON, Australia, June 1 (Reuters) - A run of weak economic data in China is likely to show up in softer imports of key commodities, albeit with a lag given the time taken to physically ship resources from around the globe.The manufacturing indicator, the official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), dropped to a five-month low of 48.8 points in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.This was the second month the measure was below the 50-level that separates expansion..