Joanne Liu, Assistant to Secretary General, CMRA, spoke about China's demand prospects for secondary metal.
The cumulative consumption of non-ferrous metals in China is 700 million tonnes and the output of recycling non-ferrous metals has reached 130 million tonnes, contributing a quarter of the raw materials for the non-ferrous metals industry in China.
“In the last two years, the total output of recycling copper, aluminum, zinc and lead was 16.55 million tonnes with a growth rate of 5.3%. In the first half of this year, the output of recycling non-ferrous metals reached 8.68 million tonnes, with 1.9 million tonnes of recycling copper, 4.65 million tonnes of recycling aluminum, 1.48 million tonnes of recycling lead and the recycling zinc was 650,000 tonnes.”
She added that in the last two years, there were more than 50 recycling non-ferrous metal projects that have obtained environmental impact assessment permits and are under construction.
According to research, in 2022, the domestic recycling volume of scrap copper, aluminium, zinc and lead was about 13.75 million tonnes. Ten years ago, this was just 6.65 million tonnes.
Last year, China imported 1.77 million tonnes of scrap copper from the US, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, whereas the aluminum scrap import was 1.52 million tonnes. She noted that these are pretreated in Southeast Asia to meet the Chinese standards of recycled materials.
By 2025, the production of recycling non-ferrous metals is slated to reach 4 million tonnes. This target could be even achieved ahead of schedule, she said.
She noted that by 2025, the demand for copper will increase multifold due to the shift towards e-vehicle and solar power adoption in China. She said the production of recycling non-ferrous metals will reach 20 million tonnes in 2025 and 28 million tonnes in 2030.