This post was originally published on The Economic Times
China’s net imports of refined copper last year were the lowest since 2017 at 3.03 million metric tons.
While inbound shipments dropped by a relatively modest 5% relative to 2024, the big change was a dramatic jump in exports. The world’s largest buyer of copper shipped out almost 800,000 tons.
The unprecedented counter-flow was driven by the global dislocation created by the threat of U.S. import tariffs and the resulting high premium for physical delivery to the United States.
But it’s also a reflection of China’s ever-growing processing capacity across the base metals spectrum.
Exports of refined nickel also reached record levels, while those of primary aluminium and zinc were the strongest since 2006 and 2015 respectively, according to the World Bureau of Metal Statistics, which sources data from China’s General Administration of Customs.
China’s metals trade was once a one-way street but that’s changing.
BONDED ROUNDABOUT
The threat of U.S. tariffs on imports of refined copper, deferred until June, opened up a yawning gap between the U.S. price represented by the CME contract and the international price traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME) .Traders
— Read the rest of this post, which was originally published on The Economic Times.
