Domestic factors, including the Government’s increasing spending on infrastructure, real estate market recovery, and consumption, will help Vietnam maintain its economic expansion at 6.5% in 2025.SEE MORE
The European Union increased oil imports from Russia to 687.5 million euros ($717 million), the highest since February this year, according to Sputnik's analysis of Eurostat data.SEE MORE
The US has imported some 1.1 tonnes of China-origin gallium and 4.5 tonnes of China-origin germanium since the export control first came into effect last year, according to the data, which is available up to October of this year.
Per the US Census Department, the country of origin refers to where the goods were produced or where they underwent a tariff classification change indicating a “substantial transformation.”
The data therefore does not necessarily reflect that the US is somehow indirectly importing material from China; instead, it could be buying material from pre-export-control stocks in Europe and elsewhere, when exports from China did not require end-user documentation.
Either way, the initial implementation of China’s export control required foreign buyers to identify their material’s end-user before receiving a license to ship material, before exports were considered on a case-by-case basis. The end-user classification is understood to refer to someone transforming material to a sufficient extent to change its relevant customs code.
That classification would likely make any entity exporting gallium or germanium recycling feedstock from China and refining that into metal as an end user, even if they are then shipping that metal to the US, market participants told Fastmarkets.
But they questioned how practical enforcing an export control lower down the value chain could be, while warning it could lead midstream gallium and germanium consumers exercise more caution in their sales into the US if they are sourcing metal from China.
“Are you going to risk your China sourcing ability for a small US sale?” a second European trader said.
China-based exporters said it was too early to say how the tighter export controls would affect shipments in the long run, although they warned of longer processing times for exports to be approved due to extra due diligence requirements.
Some market participants have reported that processing times for exports have been longer anyway. Exports of gallium were initially frozen when the export control came into effect, but, since then, shipments have been to close to their historic volumes.
Furthermore, in October, the most recent month for which China’s trade flow data is available, gallium exports declined precipitously, leading some sources to ponder that tighter due diligence requirements were already being placed on shipments.SEE MORE