SteelOrbis Shanghai
On August 21, China's Ministry of Commerce announced that it is to implement the Application Criteria for Ferroalloy Export Permits, effective of September 1, 2008, mainly aimed at silicon manganese, ferrosilicon, and other common alloy products.
According to the announcement, enterprises that apply for ferroalloy export permits must meet the entry criteria for the ferroalloy industry issued by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC); and the said enterprises should post a total export supply of more than 3,000 mt of ferromanganese, ferrosilicon, and silicon manganese; moreover, these enterprises should also have ISO9001 Quality Management System certification.
This measure will make mass medium and small ferroalloy producers unable to export ferroalloy products. Since there are not many Chinese producers passing ISO quality certification, this stipulation will affect exports of most domestic producers. Therefore, exports of Chinese ferroalloy products will decrease.
In the first half of 2008, the country's ferroalloy exports recorded an obvious slowdown in growth. The data released by the General Administration of Customs showed that China's ferroalloy exports in the first six months of this year totaled 1.724 million mt, up 8.5 percent year on year. The growth rate was 50 percentage points lower compared with the same period last year. The exports in the question period amounted to $3.13 billion in value, an increase of 72.1 percent year on year.
The data also indicated that due to the impact of the EU's anti-dumping measures, China's H1 ferroalloy exports to the EU dropped considerably by 8.2 percent year on year. Meanwhile, exports to Japan rose 7.9 percent, those to South Korea grew 15.5 percent, and finally, exports to the US increased by 25.6 percent. Generally speaking, ferroalloy exports to the above four countries totaled 1.234 million mt, accounting for 71.6 percent of total exports in the period in question.