Chile's Copper Export Increases Sharply in September

SANTIAGO, Oct. 16 -- Chile's copper export rose 54 percent in September from the same period last year, reaching the highest level of this year with a value of 2.567 billion U.S. dollars, the central bank of Chile announced Thursday.

    It said that the copper export earned 17.837 billion dollars from January to September this year, a drop of 36.3 percent from the same period last year. Meanwhile, the mining export reached 2.971 billion dollars in September 2009, 25.6 percent more than in August.

    Chile is the largest copper producer in the world. In the previous months, its copper industry has seen a gradual recovery in copper price after a collapse it suffered in 2008 due to the global economic slowdown.

    The Chilean National Society of Mining (Sonami) has estimated that Chile's copper export will total 20 billion dollars in 2009, while in 2008 the total copper export was of 32.807 billion dollars.

    After copper, the second largest mining products exported by Chile are molybdenum oxide and the molybdenum iron, whose export volume was valued at 210.7 million dollars in September, an increase of 188 percent over the 73.1 million dollars exported in August.

    The third most important mining product sold by Chile is iron, whose exports amounted to 93.3 million dollars in September, 124 percent more than in August.

    (Source: Xinhua)