1. World Copper Fabricating Center is moved to China
As a direct result of China outstanding economic performance in recent years,
China is now the biggest copper user in the world and is becoming the main drive of overall global copper usage. Due to China's important role in the world copper industry, more and more producers and users need to understand how China will impact on the copper market and where future Chinese demand will come from and if it is economically sustainable. It is called “The China Factor”.
2. Chinese Copper Fabricating Industry
In 2005, copper fabricating production in China is No.1 in the world by country for 4.19 million tonnes.
In recent years, Chinese Copper Fabricating Center : Henan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong
province (included existing copper fabricators, private enterprises, international JV copper fabricators) had big progress for production after they imported the world class equipment and production line. The copper fabricating products includes:
Plate, Bar, Tube, Plant, Rolled, Foil, Rod, especially, screw thread Tube, Drinkable Copper Tube, Electron Frame, White Copper Tube.
Currently, one third of Chinese copper fabricating production is exported to worldwide.
The demand for copper tube will increase a lot in near future for china market.
3. China Copper Consumption
Electric power and home appliances (electronic products) industries are the largest consumption market for copper which is followed by: construction, infrastructure, industry machinery and equipment, transportation equipment (automobile Industry ), consumer goods and general products.
Electric Power Industry
Since 2006, China entered the period called “11th five-year Plan”. All the power lines and the related equipments of Electric Power network will be upgraded from existing areas (country side, city) to modern cities that covers national wide.
They will have huge potential demand for copper consumption. According to date from China Electric Power Company, the total investment for china Electric Power network is
Year |
|
Chinese central government budgeted
|
| |
|
(100 million RMB) |
| |
|
|
2005 |
|
1700 |
2006 |
|
2000 |
2007-2017 |
|
1800-2000 (per year) |
Reason: The existing facility of generate electricity and network in china is much behind than the average facility of world class. As a major raw material for Electric Power Industry, Copper will have 30% of electricity network investment.
Automobile Industry
Automobile Industry is the one of the fastest developed industry in China. China is a country where up until recently less than 1% of the population owning automobiles was only a dream. Since cars and other modern amenities are now becoming available to a greater percentage of the people, the 50 pounds of copper it takes to build a car respectively can really accelerate the demand for this commodity.
According to date from Chinese Automobile Industry Association, the automobile production is 5.7077 million and 5.7582 million cars are sold in 2005.
Currently, the most of world class Car Maker Grouies have the production base or joint venture enterprise in China. The car made in China will be exported world wide in the near future.
Other Consumption
And in a growth economy cars and houses are only a fraction of the copper that will be required in an infrastructure build-out of major cities and ports. Industrial machinery, office buildings, mass-transportation equipment, electronics and general consumer goods will all demand significant copper. |
