SMM Analysis: Ban of Traders to Import Scrap Copper in 2018, What’s the Influence?

Published: Oct 17, 2017 16:49 (GMT+8)
On July 27th, the General Office of the State Council released the Action Plan of Ban on Foreign Waste Entry & Regulation Reform of Imported Solid Waste.

SHANGHAI, Oct. 17 (SMM)-On July 27th, the General Office of the State Council released Action Plan of Ban on Foreign Waste Entry & Regulation Reform of Imported Solid Waste: To improve license system of solid waste import and ban traders’ agent import.

There are two licenses in imported scrap copper trading. One is domestic consignee certificate needed for Category 6 & 7 of Waste. The other is import license (environment certificate), which is needed for the Category 7 of Waste.

From 2018, for the domestic consignee certificate, the processing and utilization unit must keep the same as domestic consignee. For import license, the importer must keep the same as the utilizer.

This means from 2018m means of import agent for declaration will be banned. Traders will lose the qualification of importing scrap copper no matter for Category 6 or 7 of Waste. In fact, SMM finds recently import of traders for scrap copper has been restricted. SMM knows the scrap copper imported by traders accounts for 20% of total import volume of scrap copper. Calculated by 1.3 million tonnes total imported volume, the annual import volume of scrap copper by traders is 260,000 tonnes. As per 52% ratio of the Category 7, the annual import volume of Category 7 scrap copper is 135,000 tonnes and Category 6 scrap copper is 125,000 tonnes.

SMM thinks this measure has little effect on scrap copper of Category 6, which mainly influences scrap copper import of Category 7.

1. According to SMM research, recently major domestic scrap copper utilizer has begun to apply for the domestic consignee certificate. For domestic scrap copper processing plants, it’s hard to maintain a stable supply, which is a mandatory condition to apply for a domestic consignee certificate. Traders can establish business relationship with enterprises to introduce domestic supplier to them and provide supply-chain support for some commission.

2. According to SMM research, for scrap copper import of Category 7, disassembling waste of Category 7 need corresponding qualification (scrap metals, household appliances and cars all need relevant qualification), so copper plants have no qualification to disassemble scrap copper of Category 7. For those disassembling enterprises, they can import scrap copper of Category 7 and get some replenishment form traders at insufficiency, As per SMM research, currently the Ministry of Environmental Protection has been retrieving environment certificates in many places. From 2018, the quota of environment certificates for disassembling enterprises will become tighter. As the traders will lose the qualification of importing scrap copper, the Category 7 scrap copper import will further tightened. Hence, traders will lose qualification of scrap copper import from 2018. But they can still work as the middleman to provide supply-chain service for copper enterprises, with little influence for scrap copper import of Category 6. Since copper enterprises have no disassembling qualifications and the Ministry of Environmental Protection has restricted grant of import license, import of Category 7 will be restricted further.


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