4.1.3.1 Production

The nonmetallic mineral industry plays an important role in the development of the national economy in China. Especially in the last 10-odd years, the outputs of several important staple nonmetallic minerals and their products, such as cement, chemical fertilizers, mineral salt and flat glass, have occupied the first place in the world. The production of a series of superior minerals, such as graphite, talc, asbestos, dimension stone, scrap mica, fluorite and barite, can not only satisfy the needs for rapid development of the national economy, but also be exported in a great quantity. China's deep-processing industry of nonmetallic mine-rals has developed from only running out single products to turning out numerous series of products, such as mica, graphite, diatomite, kaolin and talc series. 

The outputs of major nonmetallic minerals in China in 1997 are listed in Table 4.1.2.

Table 4.1.2The outputs of major nonmetallic minerals and part of their manufactured products in China (1997)

4.1.3.2 Supply and Demand Trends

In comparison with fuel minerals and metallic minerals, nonmetallic minerals belong to the category of minerals with relative superiority among all minerals in China. The resources of most minerals of the category are abundant. The reserves of them can guarantee basically the needs of the medium and long-term economic construction of the country. And the production can basically meet the domestic demand. Especially a considerable amount of mineral resources are superior in quality and abundant in quantity, and their production is more than self-sufficient and can be exported in a great amount for a long time to come. Chinese nonmetallic mineral commodities occupy an important position in the international trade of mi-neral products. A few mineral resources not only cannot satisfy the domestic needs at present, but also make the country rely on import in a large quantity or use alternative products because of their short reserves and low production. Moreover, they also cannot guarantee the needs of the future economic construction of the country. This condition can hardly be changed in a relatively long period of time. 

1) The superior minerals (with part of their manufactured products) which are abundant in resources and excellent in quality and whose production is more than self-sufficient and exported products are welcome in the international markets are magnesite, fluorite, fireclay, mirabilite, barite, graphite, wollastonite, talc, cement, flat glass, diatomite, bentonite and granite. The reserves and production of the above mentioned mineral resources rank first or second in the world in most cases, and the quantity of exports occupy a monopolous proportion in the total international trade of the respected minerals. The qualities of them are excellent and have a superiority in the world. For example, the first and second grades of magnesite ores with MgO more than 43% constitute 53% of the total reserves in China. Chinese fluorite is of pure quality, and its export amount gets a good lead in the world markets. The high-grade products of talc ore with talc content equal to or more than 80%~90% reach to 72% of the total reserves in China. China has explored the richest and rarely seen crystalline graphite in the world. 

2) The minerals which have abundant resources and whose qualities are both excellent and bad concurrently and production can basically satisfy the needs for domestic economic construction are sulfuric, salts, boron, phosphate, asbestos, mica, gypsum and marble. The mineral products of these varieties are supplied mainly for domestic consumption and can be basically self-sufficient. Some individual manufactured products, for instance phosphoric fertilizer, need to be imported in a large amount because of limited manufacturing dimension and comparably high production cost. Some mineral products, such as sulfur and asbestos, are temporarily overstocking, and the supply of them surpasses the demand because of overimport, resulting from low pricing of the respected products in the world markets. 

3) The mineral resources which are insufficient and need to be imported for making up shortage for a long time to come is potash. The annual import of potassium fertilizer reaches 5 million tons. 

 4) The mineral which has insufficient resources and needs to be supplemented by man-made substitutes is diamond. The industrial diamond applied in China is almost all the synthetic one. The output of artificial diamond in China in 1997 reaches 440 million ct. Apart from part of them, which are used for export and stockpiling, all diamond products are used basically for industrial application. The natural diamond, used for industrial application, constitutes only less than 1% of consumption of domestic industrial diamond. The import and export of China's major nonmetallic mineral products and part of their manufactured products are shown in Table. 4.1.3.

The difference between nonmetallic mineral industry and other mineral industries is that the collective-owned enterprises hold a dominant position in the industry. Their production exceeds by far that of state-owned enterprises. The outputs of most mineral products of collective-owned enterprises occupy a prevailing superiority in the total national outputs. The proportions of production of collective-owned enterprises for some minerals are as follows: magnesite 83.71%, fluorite 66.19%, fireclay 71.68%, wollastonite 91.06%, gypsum 71.67%, diatomite 67.83%, decorative granite 99.30%, bentonite 82.01%, kaolin 84.36%, architectural granite 93.14% and decorative marble 90.21%. Since the mining enterprises of collective ownership are numerous and small and operate at will, and their production management is not regulatory, the qualities of their products are unstable, the good and the bad are intermingled, the production scales are unfixed, the technological levels of mining, dressing and processing are low, the deep-processing of minerals is poor either, the mineral resources are wasted heavily, and the environmental pollution is surprisingly heavy. All these result in a passive situation of overproduction of most of mineral products and overstock of a large amount of low-grade products. 

Looking forward to the future, we see that China's nonmetallic mineral industry has a sound foundation of resources and a wide development perspective. To give even more play to the resources superiority of China's nonmetallic minerals to serve the national economy better we should carry out geological exploration oriented toward deficient nonmetallic minerals, such as potash, diamond, trona, and boron, phosphate, sulfuric minerals, gems and jades and dimension stones of superior quality to enlarge reserves and widen perspectives. At the same time, we should actively apply both domestic and foreign resources to make up the deficiency of domestic resources, actively carry out development and applied researches of nonmetallic minerals, extend their application areas; strengthen the research on mining, dres-sing and processing technologies, raise the technical level, heighten the quality and processing extent of products, improve the utilization rate of resources; establish and perfect mining laws and regulations, pursue scientific management of mining industry, standardize mining production, decrease waste of resources, and strive to utilize resources rationally, pay earnestly close attention to environmental protection and guarantee the implementation of the sustainable development strategy.