The Chinese Environment and Ecology Ministry said it will maintain scrap import quotas until the end of 2020.
In a monthly conference on June 30, Liu Youbin, a spokesman for the ministry, said the ministry will keep approving scrap quotas, including metals, in a reductive manner, according to the established plan. The move has been undertaken to prevent imminent supply disruption, said Youbin.
According to customs data, copper concentrate imports totaled 1.69mn mt in May, declining by 16.8pc from 2.03mn mt a month earlier, and by 7.7pc from 1.83mn mt in May 2019.
Unwrought copper product imports totaled 436,031mt in May, declining by 5.5pc from 461,458mt in April, but increasing by 20.8pc from 361,000mt in May 2019.
On June 16, the ministry approved import quotas for another 1,570mt of high-grade copper scrap and 5,840mt of aluminium scrap. It approved only six quotas in its eighth batch for 2020, the smallest approval for the year.