Guizhou Provincial Metals and Minerals I/E Co., Ltd.

Relying on rich antimony ore resources and mature production systems, Guizhou Provincial Metals and Minerals I/E Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as GMG), a former state-owned foreign trade company with a long history of nearly 60 years, has become a company integrating mining, dressing, smelting, deep-processing and import & export trade and formed a complete antimony industry chain of production, supply and sales.

Asian Metal: Thank you for accepting our interview! Please make a brief introduction to your company firstly.

Ms. Zhao: GMG, the originally largest state-owned import and export company of mineral products in Guizhou founded in 1950s, has been one of 11 companies owning antimony products export permit acknowledged by the Ministry of Commerce of China. After the privatization in 2009 and the restructuring in 2012, GMG is now a subsidiary of Dongfeng Antimony under Shenzhen Jiefu Corporation and an export platform of antimony ingot, antimony trioxide, flame retardant masterbatch and other products with the brand of Jiefu. Shenzhen Jiefu Corporation, including GMG and Dongguan Jiefu, has annual sales of nearly 12,000t and is one of top five companies in the domestic antimony industry.

Asian Metal: As we all know, China's antimony trioxide export market has seen weakened demand so far this year affected by the spread of Covid-19 in overseas countries. Has the Covid-19 brought some bad influences on your company so far in 2020?

Ms. Zhao: Chinese antimony companies have been influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Sino-US trade war to different degrees so far in 2020 and our company is not an exception. It seemed that the impact was mainly felt in Q2 when our antimony trioxide exports dropped by 10% YOY; but in Q3, our exports of the material went up by 10% YOY as the spread of Covid-19 was contained to some extent and the demand for our antimony trioxide from our customers, most of whom are end users from Japan, South Korea, Germany and Belgium, was relatively stable. The overall sales this year are expected to be largely in line with those of last year.

Asian Metal: The demand for antimony trioxide declined generally in China's export market in Q2 and Q3, but export prices increased slightly in Q3. What's the reason for the price increase in your opinion?

Ms. Zhao: As far as we are concerned, there were three major reasons for the price increase of antimony trioxide in China's export market in Q3. Firstly, any price fluctuation couldn't be separated from the market law, namely the supply-demand relationship. Specifically speaking, we mainly attributed the price increase in Q3 to tight supply in China's export market. Although the demand for Chinese antimony trioxide in the export market was weak as overseas customers just refilled stocks cautiously and were not confident enough to make replenishments affected by the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, the supply of the material in the export market was tight owing to the supply shortage of raw material antimony concentrate, especially against the backdrop that China's imports of antimony concentrate from Russia, Burma, Tajikistan and other countries dropped by nearly 40%. Secondly, in spite of increasing mining costs and environmental protection costs year by year, prices of antimony trioxide were lower than those of antimony ore and antimony trioxide producers, who suffered losses, were unwilling to conclude deals, which also stimulated prices to rebound. Thirdly, with the demand for antimony trioxide from Southeast Asian customers starting reviving in early June 2020 and that from Chinese customers picking up gradually then, our exports of the material went up substantially by 30% MOM during the month and prices began increasing.