Russia wants to increase scrap exports to China
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.