Tin: Indonesia will reduce exports, possible increase in prices
The Indonesian government plans to shake up the tin market in the coming months. The Southeast Asian country has decided to stop exporting its raw ore and to create its own national tin industry in subsequent production steps as well. According to the Metalminer analyst, the government wants to attract end users, such as welders and electric vehicle manufacturers, with incentives that include tax breaks and holidays.
"They want to become an electric vehicle manufacturing center," the source said. “They want to get closer to this goal”. Currently about 95% of the country's refined tin ends up leaving the state to support the global market. On the contrary, Indonesia would like this metal to be processed locally, attracting processors, but blocking the export of the ore and refined metal.
The analyst made these remarks on the sidelines of the London Metal Exchange metal seminar, held on 24 October. The event was part of the LME Week 2022, which began on the same date. "The downstreaming of refined tin would also create jobs in Indonesia," the analyst noted. “It's an economic question”.
The source estimated that Indonesia's refined tin production currently stands at around 75% of production capacity, although it declined to provide an exact figure on actual capacity. However, he noted that there are about 30 smelters of various sizes in the island province of Bangka-Belitung. This is where most of the mining and smelting of the pond in the island archipelago takes place.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo and the country's ministries of investments and mines are all heavily involved in the project. Widodo initially floated the idea of banning tin exports in late 2021, although he did not specify whether this would apply to tin concentrate or finished products. "But I think the goal is now more realistic," the analyst commented. Indonesia does not have the energy problems that Western countries suffer from, so it would be relatively easy to attract companies that are currently suffering from the old continent's energy crisis.
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new articles of Economic Scenarios.
The Tin article: Indonesia will reduce exports, possible price increase comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/l-2/ on Tue, 01 Nov 2022 08:00:55 +0000.