4.8.3.1 Availability and Consumption
China has rich salt resources, a developed salt mining industry and an ample salt production, so the demands of the nation's industries and people's livelihood for salt can be completely satisfied.

Since the 90s of the 20th century, China's annual output and sale of crude salt have exceeded 20 million tons, and they both have shown a trend of steady increase but the growth speed of the salt output has greatly surpassed that of the salt sale. In the 8 years of 1990~1997 the salt output increased 54.49% and the salt sale only 21.53%. The year of 1997 saw China's crude salt output of 31,623,000 tons (excluding Taiwan Province's crude salt output of 270,500 tons) and crude salt sale of 24,790,700 tons.

China's demand for salt is wholly satisfied by the domestically produced salt. Industrial salt and edible salt are major items of the crude salt consumption. Before the mid-80s of the 20th century, China's consumption of salt was dominated by that of edible salt, but follo-wing the nation's industrial development, particularly the development of the salt-based soda-making industry, the consumption of industrial salt has vigorously increased. China's consumption of industrial salt surpassed that of edible salt for the first time in 1986. From then on, the proportion of the industrial salt consumption continued to rise and at present this consumption accounts for three-fourths of the total consumption of salt. In 1997, China's salt consumption structure (based on sales) and consumption proportions of various salts were: industrial salt 75.06%; edible salt 23.96%; salt used in agriculture and animal husbandry 0.1%; salt used in fishery 0.15%; and salt used for export 0.73%.

China's salt export volume is very limited, amounting to hundreds of thousand tons per year only, and shows a tendency of decrease from year to year. China's salt is mainly exported to Japan, Russia, Korea and other countries. China's salt import is negligible, less than 10,000 tons every year.

In order to get prepared against war and natural disasters and to regulate the market supply, China has established a system of balanced salt reserve and State strategic salt reserve. The reserve salt is separately stored up in various stock pilling localities in every province (municipality, region), each province having a salt storage of tens to hundreds of thousand tons. Ordinarily the use of the salt reserve is not permitted without the approval of the State Bureau of Light Industry.

China's crude salt outputs and sales in the 1990s are given in Table 4.8.10.

Table 4.8.10 China's salt outputs and sales¢Ù (¡Á106 t)

¢Ù The outputs and sales of Taiwan Province are not included. Taiwan Province produces about 0.3~0.4 million tons of salt every year and its salt consumption structure is unknown.

4.8.3.2 Trend   

For a time in the 80s of the 20th century, there appeared a situation of demand excee-ding supply on China's salt market and particularly the edible salt and industrial salt were in short supply, thus unfavorably affecting the social stability. In the terminal 80s, the salt industry developed rapidly, following the implementation of the principle of simultaneously developing the salt and soda-making industries. The salt market reached a supply-demand balance in 1990. Afterwards, however, large numbers of key salt industrial projects were put into production and a great many township-owned saltworks emerged. As a result, the crude salt production grew so fast that the output became more than sufficient to meet the demand and there appeared a sustained situation of the output surpassing the sale and the supply exceeding the demand on China's salt market. In 1997, of China's 33 provinces (regions, and municipalities) 24 (including Taiwan Province) were salt-producing, and only 9 were salt-poor or non-salt-producing provinces (regions and municipalities) whose salt demands were supplied and fully guaranteed by the salt-rich provinces. China's domestic salt production is not only sufficient to  satisfy the country's demand fully but also has a lot to spare. So far, the volume of  China's crude salt in stock has reached 17,760,800 tons (in 1997).

It is envisaged that China's demand for salt will continue to grow along with  economic development in the future. In 1995 the China National Association of Light Industry made a prognosis on China's salt demands at the end of the 20th century and in 2010, which indicated that the salt demands would be estimated at 30 million tons in 2000 and 40 million tons in 2010, respectively.

China's salt resources are extremely abundant: the sea salt resources are immeasurable, the explored reserves of well-mineral salt and lake salt amount to about 400 billion tons and the volume of salt mineral resources is estimated to be 11 trillion tons. So, the future salt production construction is garanteed with ample resources and there is no worry about the shortage of resources.

China's existing salt production capacity is basically sufficient to meet the demand at the end of the 20th century.

In order to achieve a sustainable development of the salt industry and a supply-demand balance on the salt market in the future, China's salt industry will adopt the following measures:

1) Strengthening the macrocontrol to form a rational distribution framework of the salt industry, and implementing the guiding thought of achieving a moderate development of the sea salt production, practicing a strict control of the salt making by the vacuum method, and allowing no further expansion of the lake salt production capacity in the near future, so as to strive to control the salt production capacity within the scope of the demand;

2) Putting the salt production under control according to the market demand and determining the production quota according to the sale, so as to achieve a basic balance between the output and the sale;

3) Implementing the principle of revitalizing the salt industry through science and technology to reduce the cost and raise the technical content of products;

4) Devoting more efforts to enforcing the law, so that the salt mining is managed according to law and the production and circulation order in the salt industry is rectified and improved;

 5) Actively preventing and controlling the environmental pollution, including the ground surface, water body and air pollution and the noise pollution, caused by salt mining and processing and production of salt chemicals, so as to protect the environment for the benefit of mankind.