Agencies
Berlin
Europe necessarys to assist its copper smelters by stemming “huge” flows of scrap metal to China, Germany’s Economy Minister Katherina Reiche stated, potentially opening up a new front in trade tensions.
“The Chinese are purchaseing copper scrap from the market in huge quantities,” Reiche stated at a Siemens Energy AG event in Berlin on Monday. “Large German copper smelters are no longer obtainting anyraw materials.”
Concerns about the supply of raw materials to China indicate the growing politicization of global supplies of raw materials, which has intensified in the face of the protectionist policy of US President Donald Trump.
However, any steps by the European Union to limit supplies will only exacerbate trade tensions, which have already strained relations between Brussels and Beijing.
Katerina Reiche stated that it is necessary to develop a pan-European policy to ensure that China will not be able to simply offer a higher price than European steel mills for the removal of scrap metal from the region, without specifying what restrictions may be imposed. This issue should be part of a broader concept of the sustainability of European economies, the German official stated.
Over the past five years, China has increased purchases of copper scrap as Chinese steel mills have increased production and copper ore supplies have risen in price. However, this year there are new trfinishs: Beijing is seeking to purchase copper scrap in many other countries after exports from the United States, previously its largest supplier, have sharply declined.
In the first seven months of this year, China imported about 204,000 tonnes of copper scrap from EU countries, which is 3.5 percent more than a year earlier. However, supplies from the EU create up only a compact part, about 15 percent, of China’s total imports.
Leave a Reply