According to a statement released by the Standardisation Administration of China in January, the government is proposing that inspections to detect harmful chemical elements in heavy metal concentrates imports should no longer be mandatory; instead, they will be “recommended”.
Any amendments to the regulations would have to be approved by other areas of the Chinese government, which up to now have pursued an anti-pollution policy.
Under the current rules, introduced in April 2006, shipments of metal concentrate into the country must undergo inspection by the China Inspection and Quarantine Services (CIQ) and may not contain levels of more than 0.5% of arsenic, 6% of lead, 0.1% of fluorine, 0.05% of cadmium and 0.01% of mercury.
However, if all imports of metal concentrate are...
