According to a report from Shanghai Metals Market, China last week issued a fresh batch of metal scrap import quotas for the fourth quarter of 2019, reducing the permissible amount to 13,770 tonnes of newly restricted high-grade aluminium scrap.
Together with the previous batches of quotas which allowed the imports of 77,875 tonnes of 7602000090 aluminium scrap into the Chinese market, the amount permitted now comes to 91,645 tonnes in total for the fourth quarter. This brings the permissible amount significantly down from 274,955 tonnes in the third-quarter quotas, SMM calculated based on the list released by the Solid Waste and Chemical Management Centre.
The decline came in line with market expectations that Chinese authorities would further intensify waste import restrictions in the remainder of the year.
SMM expects China’s aluminium scrap market to become constricted in the fourth quarter, despite greater imports of aluminium alloy ingot finished products. Thanks to weak inventories and stable orders by secondary aluminium producers.
In 2018, China imported 1.57 million tonnes of aluminium scrap, 2.41 million tonnes of copper scrap, and 1.34 million tonnes of ferrous scrap, totalling 5.32 million tonnes of scrap metal.
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