METI Seeks to Remove Minerals Export Control by China

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry held thirteenth vice ministerial level talk with Ministry of Commerce of China in Beijing. Mr. Hiroyuki Ishige, vice minister for international affairs of METI said Chinese government should remove export restriction for mineral resources including quota and export tariff. Mr. Chen Jian Vice minister of Commerce of China said China tries to improve the mineral resource preservation and to reduce environmental impact through the export control.

METI sought revision of mineral resource policy of China for the first time at the vice ministerial talk when China expanded the export restriction while Japan depends on supply from China deeply. Chinese officials insisted the export restriction has no problem but the ministry could modify the policy for each case depending on the impact. METI is still trying to seek the modification of the Chinese export restriction in next chance.

Chinese government controls export for more than 400 items in Harmonized System code and imposes export tariff on more than 300 items. The government limits the export volume for rare earth, tungsten, antimony, molybdenum, indium, silicon and zinc while the government imposes export tariff for copper, lead, nickel, aluminium and other nonferrous metals.

China introduced the export quota for molybdenum and indium in 2007 while the government reduced the quota to 14,900 tonnes for tungsten and 59,900 tonnes for antimony in 2008. The government reduced the quota to 34,000 tonnes for rare earth in 2008, which was 30% lower than 2005 level. The government also increased the export tariff 4 times since November 2006 imposing 5-25% tariff on rare metals.