SHANGHAI (Interfax-China) -- Gansu Province-based Jinchuan Nickel Group, a company that controls 90% of China's nickel output, has reduced its 2007 nickel export target to 3,000 tonnes due to pressure from the increased export tax raised by state regulators, the company told Interfax yesterday.
Jinchuan's nickel exports for the first quarter of the year reached 1,100 tonnes, according to the company.
China raised its nickel export tax from 2% to 15% last November, as part of a state macro-control policy to impede on high-energy consuming industries and narrow the growing trade surplus.
Jinchuan is now actively lobbying state regulators for a return to the 2% export tax, in the hopes of retaining business with long-term customers, according to the company's information department.
Thanks to buoyant nickel prices in the international commodities market, China's refined nickel and nickel alloy exports jumped over 92.9% to 4,667 tonnes in the first two months of this year despite the state export tax increase, according to statistics released by the General Administration of Customs.
Three-month nickel prices are currently traded at $43,855 per tonne on the London Metals Exchange. (See RI's of the nickel market.)
Commentary
The increase in export tax, regardless of official justifications, is there to protect valuable resources for domestic markets. The 3,000 tonnes equates to about 1% of projected consumption in China, so it isn't that significant.
Nevertheless, the only meaningful export of nickel from China will be by way of stainless steel finished products exports, which incidentally are booming.
(c) InterFax-China 2007.
This article comes from Interfax China Commodities Daily, a daily digest produced by Interfax News Agency in Mainland China. To receive 10 free copies of this, please e-mail david.harman@interfax-news.com.
