In the January-August period of the current year, China’s import volumes of steel scrap amounted to 170,000 mt, down 83.1 percent year on year, 1.1 percentage points faster than the decline rate recorded for the January-July period, according to the monthly import and export data issued by the Chinese customs authorities.
In particular, in the month of August China did not import any scrap. Starting from July 1 this year, the cast iron scrap, scrap of other alloy steel, scrap of tin-plated steel, scrap of iron and steel produced in mechanical processing (mechanical processing refers to lathing, planing, milling, grinding, sawing, filing, cutting and punching), scrap of iron and steel and scrap for remelting ingots have been moved into restricted import categories of solid waste that can be used as raw materials, from the previous non-restricted import categories. According to the new policy, all scrap metal importers in China will need import licenses issued under approved quarterly quotas from July 1 before they can receive any material.
China exported 65 mt of scrap in August, down 96.2 percent year on year, 0.4 percentage points faster than the decrease rate recorded in July.
In the January-August period, China’s export volumes of steel scrap amounted to 2,401 mt, down 99.3 percent year on year, with the rate of decline unchanged from the January-July period.