First, 20 years of Australian copper concentrate imports zero
China imported 21.77 million tons of copper concentrate in 2020, according to official data.
In December 2020, China imported 1.89 million tons of copper concentrate.
Of note, China imported zero copper concentrate from Australia during the month.
This is understood to be the first time this has happened in nearly 20 years.
In 2020, China imported only 783,000 tons of Australian copper concentrate, down 25% year on year.
As a result, China has significantly reduced imports of Australian copper concentrate over the past year, meaning Australia is once again at risk of losing a commodity to the Chinese market.
In this regard, some media reported on January 21, according to mining industry sources, once the loss of the Chinese market, then Australian copper mining can achieve $370 million (about 2.4 billion yuan) of annual revenue will be "lost".
In addition, China is tightening restrictions on seven Australian products: barley, logs, coal, lobster, wine, sugar, copper ore and concentrates.
In response to this, Chinese authorities responded that Australia's own products have quality problems, and China's tightening of restrictions is completely legal and compliant.
According to the Australian Financial Outlook, the seven products mentioned above, including wine, bring Australia nearly A $6 billion (about 28.5 billion yuan) in export revenue each year.
As the largest copper buyer in Australia, China bought a total of 3.7 billion Australian dollars (about 17.6 billion yuan) worth of copper products from Australia in the 2018-2019 financial year (July 1, 2018 solstice, June 30, 2019).
2. Demand for multi-channel import guarantee
It is reported that in recent years, China has already expanded the import sources of copper ore, Chile, Peru, Myanmar and other countries are important suppliers, Australia is the sixth largest supplier of copper concentrate to China, from this ranking can be seen that even if China reduces the import of copper concentrate to Australia, it will not be affected too much.
China has been "importing diversification". Apart from Australia, it can also import copper concentrate from Mongolia, Chile and Peru.
The choice of multi-channel import is helpful to ensure the high demand for imported goods in the domestic market.
According to xinhuanet on May 8, the University of Technology Sydney has released a research report on Australia-China relations, warning that Australia should work together with China to strengthen economic and trade cooperation, otherwise Australians will only lose more sources of income and job opportunities.
3. Australian businesses are eager to find new markets
In order to minimize the loss, some Australian copper concentrate enterprises are ready to find "next".
Sandfire, an Australian company, says it will export 90% of its copper production to China in 2020, but for now Chinese buyers seem to be losing their appetite for Australian copper.
As a result, Australian miners are now looking for new alternative markets.
At the moment, Australian copper concentrates are preparing to sell copper ore to other markets such as Africa and North America.
