China Update
Published by MAC on 2007-06-06
China update
6th June 2007
The Chinese government claims to have punished more than five thousand officials, involved in nearly 100,000 cases of illegal trading of mine licences and operations.
New or expanded mineral ventures are announced by Chinese companies operating in Australia, South Africa and Tanzania.
The current trend in China is towards heavily reducing primary aluminium imports (where at least some value would have been added in the producing country) , while boosting bauxite imports by nearly 225% from January 2007, according to official government figures .
In April alone, 1.3 million tonnes of bauxite was imported from Indonesia and over half a million tonnes from India.
During the first quarter of this year, Indonesian mines (and land) supplied more than four and a half million tonnes of bauxite, while Indian mines (and miners) provided nearly one and a half million tonnes.