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.
The price of tin gained more than 5% on reports that supply declines are expected from Indonesia, the world’s largest tin exporter and second-largest tin producer. World supply for 2008 is already down. The global tin supply deficit was predicted to reach 20,000 tonnes this year.
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.
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