Several speakers at the 2010 China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Recycling Branch (CMRA) forum in Ningbo, China, provided statistics lending metals industry context to the economic growth in China.
“In the first three quarters of 2010, China has imported 5.37 million tons of [nonferrous] scrap metals, an increase of 11.6 percent year-on-year,” said Wang Gongmin, president of the CMRA at that organization’s Ningbo event.
Of that total, “copper-containing scrap is 3.22 million tons [and] aluminum-containing scrap is 2.15 million tons, up 7.7 percent and 18 percent respectively,” Wang added.
The output of secondary metals has increased by similar amounts, Wang reported. “From January to September 2010, gross output of secondary nonferrous metals in China [was] about 5.5 million tons, an increase of 17 percent over the same period last year,” said Wang. “The average annual growth rate of secondary nonferrous metals shall be about 12.6 percent during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan,” he added.
The Eleventh Five-Year Plan in China concludes with 2011, which means aspects of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan were discussed in several presentations, including Wang’s. In that plan, said Wang, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is setting as its goal that “by 2015, nonferrous metals production shall reach 11.1 million tons, of which secondary copper is 3.8 million tons, secondary aluminum 5.8 million tons and secondary lead 1.5 million tons.”
CMRA keynote speaker Li Jing of China’s Department of Resource Conservation and Environmental Protection also referred to aspects of China’s next five-year plan in her presentation.
She commented that secondary metals production that creates jobs, encourages resource conservation and that is energy efficient will continue to receive government support. It is part of the government’s plan, she said, to “build a society that is environmentally friendly and [focused on] conservation.”
Li Xinmin of China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said his agency will continue to put pressure on secondary metals producers to reduce their emissions of nitrous oxides and other types of pollution or face being shut down by the government. “More environmental performance reports will be asked of recyclers,” he told attendees. “We have to make sure these companies have upgraded technology.”
The CMRA 10th Secondary Metals International Forum was Nov. 7-9 at the Shangri-La Hotel Ningbo in China.
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