2015 CMRA Convention: Removing the barriers associated with scrap shipment

Chinese nonferrous metals producers have been scaling back their purchases of imported scrap, and this may be partially because of trade policies in China, said some members of a panel discussion at the 2015 Annual Convention of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Recycling Metals Branch (CMRA). The event took place in early November in Ningbo, China.

Increased inspection regimens and fees imposed by a coalition of China’s customs and environmental agencies have been necessary to stem the shipment of substandard materials, said panelists, but several policies and procedures are unnecessarily burdensome or even off-target, according to some participants.

The grades of metal awaiting shipment are valued by metals producers and if misclassified shipments arrive the buyers will be as eager to reject them as any government inspector would, said Cai. One of the panelists urged regulators to allow Chinese metals producers to have wider access to these materials, saying it would improve the competitiveness of Chinese companies in that sector

The current inspection regimen to ship these non-troublemaking materials can add $1,000 of cost per container, the panelist said. “This is creating a higher cost for Chinese metals producers. These are high-demand quality products. If they do not come to China, they will flow to other countries.”

Robert Stein of Alter Trading Company expressed the same viewpoint. “It is not as if there are mountains of scrap looking for homes,” said Stein. For scrap exporters, “Rising costs in China have made this less of an attractive market for [many] materials,” he added.

Javier Ingles Fenoli of Spain-based Hermanos Ingles S.A. was more sympathetic to the existing China Certification & Inspection Group (CCIC) system, saying CCIC “plays a positive role” in dictating “who can do business in this field. CCIC plays a core role in protecting our environment.”

Panelists agreed that regulators in China, as in all nations, will continue to change the regulatory climate in response to environmental and economic factors. Salam Al Sharif of United Arab Emirates-based Sharif Metals International supported China’s mission to regulate as it sees fit, but encouraged it to favor “regulations that boost business and are not suppressors.”

The 2015 CMRA Annual Convention was November 7-9 at the Shangri-La Ningbo in Ningbo, China.