http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/05/ebr6.htm


Copper exports to China up 136pc

BEIJING, Feb 4: The China Customs Authority registered a 136 per cent increase in import of copper from Pakistan during December to January 2005. The total value of copper imported during the outgoing year was $85 million as against $36 million during the corresponding period a year ago.

The import is almost double, showing a rapid increase in bilateral trade between the two countries in the mineral sector. China will soon start importing a big quantity of zinc and lead from Pakistan on regular basis, said Chinese commerce ministry sources here on Saturday.

The sources said Chinese companies preferred importing copper from Pakistan, which had its competitive advantage in both quality and price.

China’s demand for copper had increased greatly due to rapid economic development and big expansion of infrastructure construction, said Tang Jing, an expert with the Tongling Nonferrous Metal Research Institute.

The country’s demand for copper products in the past decade grew by more than 10 per cent annually. Shushes Smelting, China’s second-largest zinc producer by capacity, is looking to acquire mines at home and abroad to tackle a shortage of raw materials, a senior company executive said.

Wang Jianjun, head of international trade at Zhuzhou, said the company would take delivery of 50,000 tons of zinc-in-concentrate and 20,000 tons of lead a year from Duddar mine in Pakistan due to start operating in 2007.

Zhuzhou owned a stake of less than 40 per cent of the mine, he said, but would take its entire output. The majority owner of the mine is the state-owned China Metallurgical Construction Corp.

Meanwhile, China will make more investment to further expand the existing production capacity of Saindak project in Balochistan. The expansion project will be completed within a period of one year. It will enhance its production capacity to 30 per cent.

The production of copper from Saindak has been very encouraging, said an official of the MRDL, a subsidiary of Metallurgical Construction Company of China (MCC) that is working at the Saindak copper-gold project since 2003, with an initial investment of $26 million.

The China-Pakistan cooperation in the mineral sector has opened up new business prospects and it is hoped that the Saindak project will contribute tremendously to promoting economic ties.—APP

Quick question.

Are we exporting all this in its raw form or after it goes through our smelters?

good question.

i do hope its not raw because the price we will get for that is a pittance compared to what we can get after purifying.

First of its the chinnese who are using smelters in China, so our raw products are basically being transfered to them to our own bloody detriment. Why would Pakistan even begin to export such vital minerals abroad, it would be more prodent if the GOVT with the private sector intiated constuction of plants which would sell refined products for immediate use, somthing like rubber coated copper wires or switch boards etc come to mind. China is an ally of Pakistan lets not become their comercial colony.

I think Chinese are only involved in mining and are exporting in raw form to China. But I read not too long ago that a joint venture of Australian and Argentinian firms were to develop I think Rekodik copper, and Golg reserves and they a were also establishing a purification plant and associated industry in Gawadar.

i donot think that its feasable to export copper without refineing or purifying.reason is simply because of huge transportation costs involved. copper ore has around .7-.9% of metal . ( meaning 1000 kg of ore will have about 7 kg cu).
iron on other hand is exported in ore form because commercial quality iron ore has about 60-85% metal. currently all metal is refined in saindak smelter. and of course like sufi said best way is to export finished product but unfortunately in pakistan we donot give any significance to value addition.

Copper exports from Pakistan are bound to increase manifold once we develop the RekoDik copper mines, which are among one of the largest copper reserves in the world.

Its not a very good idea exporting raw material. I fully agree with Sufi virtue. We need to create demand and try to convert copper into some kind of a finished product, then export it. Its sad there is no Pakistani company that is able to do that job. We need to be climbing up the manufacturing chain.

Hopefully the money earned from this could be invested in something worthwhile.