The price of tin was given a nearly 6 percent boost last week from Yunnan province’s announcement that it would spend about $3 million on building a 100,000 tonne stockpile of tin. The tin stockpile is a part of a wider base metals stockpile plan meant to help support local metals smelters.
Although the short-term outlook for tin and other industrial use metals is understandably bleak at the moment, the long-term projections for the dull base metal show it is likely to outshine the majority of its commodity cousins once the current crisis abates.
Exports of cassiterite, the chief tin ore mined today, from the Democratic Republic of Congo will resume on Monday. Dealers in the province of North Kivu and Congolese government officials have been preoccupied with talks the past few weeks over an export tax increase that led to a seven-week strike.
The Association of Exporters of Minerals of North Kivu is expecting a decision tomorrow from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Mines Ministry and Finance Ministry on recent increases in traders’ tax liabilities. In reaction to the tax hike, exporters in North Kivu, responsible for 75% of the country’s tin shipments, halted exports.
Tin has been experiencing a strong bull market in the last three years. In late 2005, the price of tin was around $6,000/t. Since then, the price has exploded, setting a record high $25,000/t on May 15, 2008. So far this year, the tin price has increased $53.
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