Malaysia giving Guinea, Australia a tough competition as China’s emerging bauxite supplier

Bauxite supplies from Malaysia to China grew at the highest rate in July 2017 though it dropped during the period from January to July. Other top bauxite exporting countries to China struggled to catch up with Malaysia’s export growth rate, revealed export-import data released by General Customs of China on August 23.  

Malaysia’s total bauxite export to China grew by 329.8 per cent year-on-year to reach 651,435 tonnes in July this year. Guinea exported 2.72 million tonnes of bauxite (213.4 per cent YoY) and Australia exported 1.96 million tonnes of bauxite (-7.4 per cent YoY) to China last month. Another leading bauxite producing country, Brazil, supplied only 269,044 tonnes of bauxite to China in July this year, down 31.4 per cent from the same period previous year.

January-July 2017 bauxite import data of China shows a somewhat different trend. Malaysia’s bauxite export to the Asian giant though totalled at 4 million tonnes dropped by 25.2 per cent from the corresponding period previous year.

Guinea and Australia continued to be the highest and second highest suppliers of bauxite to China. While Guinea exported 14.8 million tonnes, Australia exported 13.6 million tonnes of aluminium ore in the first seven months of 2017. Bauxite exports from both the countries grew by 174.7 per cent and 16.8 per cent YoY respectively during the period under review.

A year and half after bauxite mining ban, Malaysia’s exports to its main customer China has been again growing, much to the discontent of public over illegal mining. Politicians and residents alike are demanding for total bauxite export ban from Malaysia to check illegal mining and resultant environmental pollution. However, industry figures show and analysts believe that shipments are likely to continue in the near term.