Back in January 2014, I wrote an
article for Metal Bulletin about the Fanya minor metals exchange, which was then a new phenomenon to me. Friends of mine from the minor metals trade later shared their concerns when the exchange attempted to join the MMTA, and, in fact, its application was turned down.
Nevertheless, Fanya continued to grow, and in its latest announcement says that it has over 80,000 members. That seems a lot, for, although China has a large population, it strains belief that so many of them are actually interested in trading minor metals – after all, important though they are in many fields, they are a small market.
The implication of that, therefore, is that the activity on the Fanya exchange has been driven not by physical minor metals interest, but by something else. When I...
