Chinese demand for tin slow down a bit

It is reported that China¡¯s domestic demand for tin has slowed down, despite a rise in apparent consumption of 16% in the year to May, as fabricators struggle to pass on a 40% surge in prices.

A trade manager at Jinyi Smeltery said that China consumed 58,542 tonnes of tin in the first five months. He said that "Prices are high and demand from downstream users is falling. Domestic prices of the metal, used in solder, chemicals and in tin plates have risen in line with international prices, which have rallied sharply on falling exports from China and Indonesia. Benchmark three month London Metal Exchange tin touched a contract high of USD 25,500 per tonne on May 15th 2008 and stood at USD 23,100 per tonne recently.¡±

The trader said "Some clients who make tin chemicals for the medical and ceramics industries have stopped production after they failed to pass on price hikes. But demand remained strong from export oriented plants that have been better able to pass on high tin prices. These plants are allowed to import duty free metal if they re export that material in tin products.¡±

Smelter officials said that weak domestic demand did not necessarily mean that more tin would be shipped to the international market in coming months because output was also falling. An executive at Yunnan Tin said "We exported 5 tonnes in May, which is China¡¯s top producer and exported more than 10,000 tonnes of tin annually in previous years. Yunnan¡¯s exports were all that China sold on the world market in May.¡±

Tianjie Group starts construction of new electrical steel line

Mr Zhang Haijing deputy GM of Tianjie Group recently said that Tianjie Group has begun construction of a cold rolled silicon steel sheet product line project under its phase 2 plans.

The phase 2 with an investment of more than CNY 300 million is expected to complete in 2010. With that the output of silicon steel sheet will increase to 500,000 tonnes per year.

The first phase of the project, which cost CNY 500 million, was launched in October 2007, with capacity of 120,000 tonnes per year of silicon steel sheets.

Tianjie Group is one of the largest producers of silicon steel sheets among the private companies in China. Tianjie Group began the project in 3 phases in 2005.

Due to the hard requirements for cold rolled silicon steel sheet production, such as high technology, complicated processes and huge investment, now the producers of such materials in China are few and the capacity is low. As the manufacturing industry in China develops quickly, the demand for imported cold rolled silicon steel sheet increases to more than 1.00 million tonnes per year and there is a shortage in the market.

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