At the “7th China Copper Processing Industry Development Forum 2012” which is held recently, Yan Zhitao, General Manager of CHINALCO Luoyang Copper Co., Ltd. Sales Company, indicated that China’s economy develops rapidly. Especially, the developments of automobile, electronics, electricity and communications industries drive the growth of domestic copper consumption. However, after the year of 2000, a group of high-precision copper plate & strip projects were invested and built, causing serious surplus of domestic copper plate & strip production capacity. In recent years, the copper plate & strip projects(production capacity: 525,000 ton) invested by 12 enterprises have been put into operation,with the total investment exceeding RMB 12 billion; the ongoing and proposed copper plate& strip projects of another 9 enterprises have a total production capacity of 338,000 ton, with the total investment of nearly RMB 7.12 billion. This round of copper processing project construction boom mainly involves import of advanced technologies and equipments, which made China’s production of copper plate &strip achieve leapfrog development. After equipment upgrading in recent years, the quality and performance of copper plate & strip product have been improved to a certain extent,partially eliminating the need for product import. Nevertheless, the reliance on import of high-end products has not been changed completely. It is predicted that market demand for various high-precision plates & strips will approach 600,000 tons in 2012.

Yan Zhitao noted that, amongst China’s over 1200 existing copper manufacturers, there are over 300 copper plate & strip manufacturers,with the production capacity reaching up to 3,000,000 tons, of which high-precision plate& strip production capacity exceeded 800,000 tons. In 2011, China’s output of copper plate &strip stood approximately at 2,046,000 tons,and the total production capacity of 9 major copper plate & strip enterprises was 833,000 tons, and the output was 438,300 tons. As you see, currently, China’s copper plate & strip industry still has a low concentration rate. Yan also emphasizes that successive release of production capacity of new and expansion copper plate & strip projects will surely cause further surplus of domestic copper plate & strip production capacity and further aggravate market competition. And excessive competitions between enterprises will drive the processing fee down, thus causing constant decline of profitability of all copper plate &strip enterprises. Therefore, there is a long way to go for China’s homemade copper plate &strip products to truly replace imported products and make inroads into the international market.