Secondary Lead Smelters See 20K MT Inventory Rise; Market Sluggish as Holidays Approach

[SMM Lead Morning Brief: Geopolitical Risks Ease, Lead Prices Recover the Previous Day’s Losses] SMM, March 5: Overnight, LME lead opened at $1,937/mt. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East persisted, but the impact of bearish news weakened...

[SMM Lead Morning Meeting Minutes: Bullish and Bearish Factors Coexisted in Domestic and Overseas Markets; Lead Prices Were Expected to Remain Consolidated] US Treasury Secretary Bessent: A 15% global tariff might be implemented this week, pledged to safeguard the Persian Gulf, and hinted that more measures were forthcoming. Recently, lead-acid battery enterprises in the domestic market basically resumed production, and the overall operating rate in March rebounded sharply from February…

It was reported that during this year’s Two Sessions, NPC deputy Liu Changhai, Chairman of Camel Group, proposed expanding the scope of application of the Regulation on Ensuring Payment to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises from small and medium-sized suppliers in the supply chains of large enterprises (mainly 17 key automakers) to above-designated-size enterprises in the automotive industry, thereby creating a “hard constraint on payment terms across the entire industry.” He also proposed clearly defining “completion of goods delivery and acceptance” as the period start point, and strictly prohibiting the disguised extension of payment terms through measures such as deliberately delaying acceptance and the non-compliant use of commercial bills of exchange.