Hong Kong's supply of foreign waste copper plummet

According to a notice from China Inspection and Certification Group North America Co., Ltd. informed by Reuters, the acceptance of applications for pre shipment inspection and issuance of certificates for waste raw materials will be suspended for a month from May 4

the notice, which was issued on Thursday (May 3), said that according to relevant regulations, from May 4 (inclusive) to June 4, for a period of one month, Chinese ports will implement 100% unpacking and 100% offloading inspection and Quarantine on waste raw materials from the United States, and 100% laboratory testing and analysis will be carried out on suspected thermosetting waste plastics, metal wastes containing powder, special paper and suspected hazardous substances mixed in waste paper that are difficult to identify in July 2015

according to the General Administration of customs, the reason is that "several batches" of waste products from the United States have not met the strict new environmental protection regulations since the beginning of the year

other countries in the world have just come to realize how determined China is to "refuse foreign garbage outside the country", as the General Administration of Customs said in the notice

exert pressure

of course, this may have an impact on the copper market. According to the international copper research group (ICSG), nearly half of the world's copper scrap exports are shipped to China

last year, China imported 3.56 million tons of scrap copper

China prohibits the import of low-grade seventh category waste, such as waste motors, insulated cables, which must be disassembled and cleaned before being used as metal raw materials. The ban was announced in July last year and will take effect at the end of this year

analysts generally believe that this will affect the copper content of about 300000 tons, which will be compensated by the import of higher grade materials and more domestic recycling

however, the new regulations that came into effect in March are far more than eliminating lower grade waste

the key is the concept of "impurity content", that is, any pollutant in the waste. The threshold of impurity content set by the Chinese authorities for waste paper, waste wood and waste plastics is 0.5%, and that for non-ferrous metals is 1%

this has overturned the practice of the waste recycling industry in other parts of the world

when making a formal response to the Chinese proposal, the Institute of scrap recycling I basic industries (ISRI) said that non-ferrous metal waste has more than 150 specification requirements, and the impurity content threshold ranges from zero to 4%

"no other country in the world will use its own set of standards to determine whether imported goods can pass the customs," ISRI said in its submission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on November 15

but this is exactly what China is doing, checking each container at the port one by one

the experience of scrap copper is different. Scrap copper is being hit by scrap plastic or paper

the General Administration of Customs of the people's Republic of China clearly raised the concern that scrap metal contained "powdery substances"

China has a very strict upper limit on the content of powdery substances in scrap metal, which is no more than 0.1% of the total weight. Even though ISRI points out that the copper oxide powder generated after the oxidation of some kinds of copper still belongs to copper, which meets the standard of ISRI

major supplier

at present, the United States is China's major supplier of scrap copper, while China's imports from other low-quality scrap copper suppliers have declined, so the blow to U.S. waste exports actually makes U.S. scrap copper a target

in terms of gross weight, China's imports fell by nearly 40% to 553000 tons in the first quarter

however, the apparent purity of these imports jumped from 43% to nearly 60%

therefore, the potential impact on copper is much smaller than the figures show, with a decrease of about 5%

countries that used to export low-purity scrap copper to China, such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, saw a sharp decline in exports to China in the first three months of this year. Among the top 20 export destinations, only six have increased their export volume, and only two of them were major scrap copper exporters to China, namely the United Kingdom and the United States

the gross weight of scrap copper imported by China from the United States increased by 5.8% to 129300 tons in the first quarter

in terms of tons, although it increased by only 8000 tons, the proportion of the United States in China's imports jumped from 15% in the same period last year to 23%

Hong Kong, the second largest supplier of scrap copper in China, saw a sharp drop of 63% to 58800 tons. In other words, China has closed the door to imports of its important copper scrap suppliers, which can not be ignored in the transformation of ideology and management mode