Chinese steelmakers urged the government to ease steel scrap imports into the country. Steel mills, recyclers and processors of scrap through their associations pushed for increasing steel scrap imports to supports low-emission steel production in China at a policy meet in Tianjin.
Major steelmaker Baosteel, Hebei Iron and Steel, Jiangsu Shagang, Rizhao, Guangzhou Stainless Steel participated in the meeting to formulate standards for high-grade ferrous scrap organised by China Association of Metal Scrap Utilization (CAMU) and China Metallurgical Information and Standardization Institute (CMISI).
Steel production in China is predominately iron ore-based, which is energy intensive and emits high amount of CO2. Also, China imports iron ore and the inaccessibility to scrap steel, a green raw materials, due to import quotas is a disadvantage to domestic steel producers.
China has planned to to ban all waste imports by January 2021. This policy reform could block the passage of high-grade metal scrap into the country as they are classified as solid waste. To avoid this situation China is expected to reclassify scrap metal grades to resources from July onwards. Standards for copper and aluminium scrap imports have been finalised.