China Update

China Update

29th September 2006

Once again this week our focus is on China's involvement with the rest of the world - which pretty much means all of us.

* The country's largest titanium sponge producer, Zunyi Ti has been found guility of a chlorine gas leak which sent 158 people to hospital in early September. The company sells not only within China but also exports to the US, Japan and Europe.

* Chalco (the country's biggest aluminium producer) and state-owned Minmetals have been in talks with "Toxic Bob" Friedland's Ivanhoe Mines, aimed at securing 90% of copper concentrate from its prospective Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia.

* Jiangxi Copper Corp also says its "developing" a small copper mine in Canada with a domestic company - but hasn't told us who it is.

* BHPBilliton and the Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources have been head-to-head discussing closer collaboration. The ministry says it wants to open up the country further to foreign companies. Chip Goodyear of BHPBilliton says he's happy to oblige, although the company hasn't yet discovered a major iron ore deposit to suit its own purposes

* - Nor has Brazil's CVRD as yet, but it's making its first investment in the country's steel industry

* Official figures on aluminium trades show that, in the first six months of this year, the country exported more than double what it imported (590,000 tonnes against 230,000 tes).

So why is China both sending out and bringing in? Most of its exports are unfinished aluminium , while most of its imports consist of scrap, alumina and bauxite.

From where does it buy- and to whom does it sell? Just about everyone . The Dutch buy, the US buys; Australia sells, India sells - even the Philippines makes a modest picking.

These days it seems we're all on a fast boat to (and from) China.

[Information for this summary comes from Interfax China, September 23-29 2006].