Russia, the fourth leading exporter of
scrap to
China after the US,
Japan and
Kazakhstan, wants a bigger share of the
scrap export business to
China.
Recent common history, military cooperation, and a joint-space and nuclear program gave rise to the warm relations between the countries and are helping to fuel their economic relations.
Russia has a large amount of
scrap to sell, and
China needs it. Compared to the other
scrap suppliers,
Russia has the transportation advantage to the land ports of Northern
China. Despite being the fourth,
Russia has already increased its share in
scrap exports to
China rapidly. The increase in
scrap imports at the Inner
Mongolia's highway port Earlianhaote is a sign of that.
Meanwhile, high
iron ore prices also let Chinese steelmakers to consider running on
scrap more.
World
Scrap Metal Congress will be held in Shanghai,
China on December 6-8, 2005. There, we may see the signs of future trend of the
scrap trade between the two countries.
According to the
China Iron and Steel Association,
China's demand for imported
scrap may increase 27 percent to 13 million tons in 2005 while the demand will grow around 10 percent. Imports will continue to account for 20-25 percent of total
scrap consumption in
China through 2010.
China currently consumes around 50 million tons
scrap per year.
China imported approximately 1.16 million tons of
scrap in September, and total
scrap imports in 2005 reached 8.1 million with this figure.
Through the first nine months, the US shipped 2.06 million tons of
scrap to
China (419'250 in September),
Japan 1.62 million tons (244'740 tons in September),
Kazakhstan 1.57 million tons (157'700 tons in September) and
Russia 752'500 tons (78'600 tons in September) according to Chinese statistics.