The Production of China's Mineral Products

The ministry of land and resources statistics shows that, the output of different mostly minerals products showed a great increase in 2005, raw coal output reached 2.19 billion tons, up 11.7% over that of the previous year; crude oil, 181 million tons, up 3.4%; natural gas, 49.953 billion cubic meters, with a growth rate of 22.4%; and iron ore, 421 million tons, the increase was 35.8%; the output of ten kinds of non-ferrous metals amount to 16.35 million tons, up 14.3%;  the gold, 2.2405 million tons, up 5.5%;

Mineral Products Consumption

China has entered a new phase in its bid to become what is termed a 'moderately wealthy society'.  Its economic development displays high growth, thus the demand for large amounts of mineral products and related energy resources /raw  materials.  Over the  past  few years,  the  annual consumption of mineral ores made the country one of the biggest mineral ore consumers in the world.  The country's crude oil consumption incresed from 115 million tons in 1990 to 317 million tons of that in 2004, the consumption of coal amounted tol.26 billion tons in 1990, while in 2005, reached 2.16 billion tons, ranked first globally.

Figure1-3,1-4  and  1-5  show  the  production  and consumption status of petroleum between 1995-2005, and Natural Gas and Coal between 1990-2005.
Import/Export Trade of Mineral Products

Import/Export Trade Of Mineral Products

In 2005, the total volume of trade of China's mineral products exceeded US$300.0 bin (see Figure 1-6 for details), which increased by 66.4 bin as compared with that of previous year.

The total volume of import and export trade of mineral products  exceeded  by 22% as  against that of other commodities of the whole country, Of which the crude oil imported 126.82 million tons; iron ore, 275.23million tons; manganese, 4.58 million tons; chromate, 3.02 million tons; copper, 4.06 million tons; potassium, 9.17 million tons.

More and more countries and regions are engaging in mineral product trade with China.  In 2005, China's mineral product import/export trade grew to cover multiple areas. The import/export trade of  mineral products including coal, crude oil, ferrolite grits and refined minerals, normal steel materials, copper grits and refined minerals, primary copper, refined  copper,  copper  materials,  aluminum  oxide, aluminum-based alloys, zinc and zinc-based alloy, tin, wolfram grits, concrete, kilve and fertilizer involved several decades countries.  A stable mineral resource trading system covering multiple areas has been preliminarily established to assure the stability of export markets and import supply sources for mineral products.

Foreign investments in China's Mining Industry

With the improvement of mining investment environment, foreign investment in mining industry covers multiple areas.

In 2005, effective foreign-related prospecting license was 206;foreign-related mineral exploitation license was 187. (see figure1-3).

At present, over 80 international mining enterprises are engaged in mineral prospecting and exploitation in China.