Metalnewsnet 12 Jan:

Affected by the global financial crisis, the lead-zinc market in Euro-American countries takes slow recovery steps, but China's lead-zinc market is better than expected. In 2009, China's output of lead concentrate and lead ore still continued growth. In Jan.-Oct.2009, the total output of refined lead reached 3,159,400 tons, up 19.4% yr-on-yr; the output of lead ore amounted to 1,264,800 tons (in metal tons), up 13.5% yr-on-yr.

In Jan.-Oct.2009, the total output of refined zinc was 3,518,200 tons, up 5.8% yr-on-yr. However, the falling prices of zinc in global market at the beginning of 2009 caused fund pressure to be transferred to ore concentrate manufacturers, thus ore stoppage and production drop became the important issues for lead-zinc industry chain, and the output of zinc ore was down 7.7% yr-on-yr to be 2,437,900 tons (in metal tons).

The output increase of lead-zinc in China is attributed to the demand increase, and which becomes the attention focus of global lead-zinc market. The great rise of lead-zinc import in the second half year of 2009 also shows the strong demand for lead-zinc in Chinese market.

In the second half year of 2009, China's non-ferrous metal market recovered slightly, and lead-zinc enterprises also rid themselves of global financial predicament gradually.

Editors: KylinTse   

To contact MNN staff for this story: Kylin at +86-28-6676-596674 or metalnewsnet@gmail.com