China Non-Ferrous Metals Trade up 46.5% in First 11 Months

BEIJING, Dec. 31 -- China's non-ferrous metals imports and exports rose 46.5 percent year-on-year to $108.48 billion in the first 11 months of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said Thursday.

Imports grew 40.6 percent year-on-year to $83.15 billion while exports increased 69.6 percent to $25.33 billion, the MIIT said in a statement on its website.

Output of ten non-ferrous products amounted to 28.75 million tons in the period, up 21.4 percent from a year earlier. Refined copper output rose 10.7 percent to 4.18 million tons while alumina output rose 27.6 percent to 14.93 million tons.

Lead output increased 11.7 percent year-on-year in the same period to 3.78 million tons while that of zinc rose 19.7 percent to 4.74 million tons.

In the period, fixed asset investment of non-ferrous metals industries excluding independent gold producers increased 34 percent year-on-year to 324.6 billion yuan ($49.01 billion) while new projects totaled 359.8 billion yuan, up by 38.2 percent compared with the same period last year.