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September 3, 2011

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Bulk commodity firms roll out

SHANGHAI plans to increase the storage area for bulk commodities, including nonferrous metals, at bonded warehouses by fourfold to 200,000 square meters amid efforts to develop a top bulk commodity trading center in the Asia-Pacific region.

That's similar to the storage scale for bulk commodities in Singapore, according to the Shanghai Free-Trade Zones Administration, which supervises free-trade zones in Yangshan and Waigaoqiao ports and Pudong International Airport in the city.

"The city aims to develop the Yangshan Free Trade Port into an international bulk commodity trading center and a globally influential price-forming center," Dai Haibo, vice director of the administration, said yesterday.

"It will benefit domestic companies in global trading with the 'Shanghai Price' in the long term," he said at a conference held to mark the launch of 10 bulk commodity firms at Yangshan.

Yangshan and Waigaoqiao have become a major distribution center for nonferrous metals. About 70 percent of the country's copper is imported from Shanghai ports.

The zones' import and export value of copper reached US$5.5 billion last year and hit US$4.2 billion in the first six months of this year.

Copper, aluminum and other nonferrous metals are currently the major distribution and trading items at Yangshan and trading will cover oil and other bulk commodities soon, Dai said.

The free trade zones are working to offer value-added services by lowering the cost for commodity trading to attract firms into the areas.

Attracted by the preferential policies, 10 leading companies from the banking, trading and manufacturing industries launched the first batch of 10 bulk commodity firms at Yangshan yesterday. Ten other companies will follow suit and register with the port soon.

Hu Shenghua, executive vice president of Citibank (China) Co, said it's imperative for the firm to develop bulk commodity trading in China, which is the biggest consumer of bulk commodities because of the large-scale infrastructure investment and swift development of the manufacturing industry.

Citibank launched a trading firm at Yangshan yesterday to expand investment in the nonferrous metal market.




 

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