China Announces Extra Scrap Metal Import Quota for Q4

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The Chinese Environment Ministry Agency, China Solid Waste and Chemicals Management released additional round of import quotas for copper and aluminium scrap for Q4. The combined total of allotted scrap quota was 24,880 tonnes, comprising of 11,110 tonnes of quota for copper scrap and 13,770 tonnes of quota for aluminium scrap.

The volume of scrap import quota plunged heavily when compared with the previous quota of 102,300 issued in the month of October this year.

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With this new round of quotas, the cumulative quotas for copper scrap import for Q4 totalled 100,133 tonnes, significantly down by nearly 78% from 452,559 tonnes in third quarter. Also, to-date Q4 aluminium scrap import quotas at 91,645 tonnes were down sharply by 75% from 372,476 tonnes in Q3 this year.

The huge drop in imports have not only impacted global scrap trade flows, but also added to scrap inventory levels in major exporting countries across the Europe and North America. It must be noted that the country had imported a total of 5.32 million tonnes of scrap in the entire year 2018.