Chinese Exporting Premium for Tin Decreases

Chinese exporting premium for tin ingot is recently settled down to US$ 500-600 per tonne when international tin price increased sharply to above US$ 9,000 per tonne, though the premium continued to surge since 2005 and reached US$ 800-900 at peak with strong selling stance of Chinese dealers. The premium decreased due to output expansion by Chinese tin refineries after their profitability recovery. On the other hand, Chinese dealers seem to aim at keeping their users from shift to Indonesian tin by the premium reduction, when Indonesia started export of high grade tin ingot on a new brand label which is another major tin producing country.Tin ingot price at London Metal Exchange increased to US$ 9,350 per tonne on Friday, increasing by near 15% in a month and reaching the level as high as June 2004. Chinese exporting premium jumped up to US$ 800-900 per tonne when LME tin price declined to near US$ 6,000 in September 2005, in order to cover the difference between Chinese domestic tin price and international price.In addition Chinese dealers raised the exporting premium even higher when demand for China tin became stronger for lead free solder which contains less lead than other tin. The exporting premium was raised more after Chinese government changed the export tax rebate from 8% to 5% in the beginning of 2006.