The EU Intends to Ban the Exports of Metal Scrap, with Little Impact on China Temporarily

SHANGHAI, Nov 30 (SMM) – The European Union intends to ban the exports of scrap to third-party countries that are not OECD countries, except for those permitted by third-party countries.

As China explicitly bans the imports of solid scrap, and it is inconsistent with the EU’s scrap management standards, the two parties have not reached a permit, affecting the direct exports of metal scrap from EU to China. It has little impact on exports of bare bright copper, #1 copper, copper granules and other mainstream mixed copper scrap to China, while the brass scrap exports will be affected, but they can be re-imported in the form of transfer to Southeast Asian. Local suppliers in EU can apply for a certificate that meets the export requirements, similar to exporting to China in the form of non-solid scrap. The entire application process takes about 2 months. Chinese buyers and EU suppliers will hold wait-and-see outlook in the short term. In general, it has little impact on China's imports of secondary metal raw materials.