
The ISRI 2018 Convention, held in Las Vegas in mid-April and hosted by the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), was attended by more than 5,100 people, mostly from North America, and the event hosted scrap buyers and sellers from around the world, despite global trade disputes. The event was also attended by many market analysts and experts.

Participants agreed that the recent developments in the international trade sector, from the introduction of Section 232 tariffs on finished aluminium imports into the United States from countries excluding Canada, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, South Korea, Brazil and European Union to China’s tariffs on aluminium scrap imports from the U.S., have created ripples in the aluminium sector.
“I’ve never seen the kind of volatility and uncertainty and risk as what’s going on right now,” said economist and futurist Jason Schenker, chairman of The Futurist Institute and president of Prestige Economics, Austin, Texas who spoke during the Spotlight on Aluminum during ISRI 2018.
His fellow speakers were Liu Wei, deputy secretary general of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Recycling Metals Branch (CMRA), and moderator Matt Kripke of Kripke Enterprises Inc., Toledo, Ohio.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in January of this year predicted a 3.9 per cent global growth rate for gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018 and 2019, Schenker said. Such growth should be good news for aluminium.
CMRA’s Wei said the U.S. supplies 28.5 per cent aluminium scrap to China as the largest exporter of aluminium scrap, followed by Hong Kong, which supplies about 26.7 per cent and Australia at 12.3 per cent.
According to China’s customs agency, aluminium scrap imports by China decreased by only 9 per cent over the first two months of 2018, Wei said. The Chinese central government plans to ban imports of Category 7 scrap by the end of 2018. In 2017, Category 7 of aluminium scrap accounted for 27.7 per cent of aluminium scrap imported by China, down from a rate of 41.9 per cent in 2016. Wei said aluminium scrap generation within China has been growing at an annual rate of 10 per cent. He also added that China is expected to replace its aluminium scrap imports with domestically generated material by the end of 2019.
Responses







