In view of the shrinking coke demand and production overcapacity, China's coking industrial insiders recently suggested that the Chinese government should make an export tariff adjustment so as to stimulate coke exports.
Accordingly, China Coking Industry Association chairman Huang Jingan has stated that the country's coking industry has been seriously hit by the financial crisis. Mr. Huang said that, characterized by overcapacity of production, the domestic coking industry is now facing a decline of coke production and almost stagnant export activity, while coke producers are suffering heavy losses as production costs rise higher than the sales prices of coke.
According to the statistics, China's coke production in the first seven months of 2009 totaled 189 million mt, down 6.3 percent year on year; meanwhile, total exports reached 283,600 mt in the period in question, a slump of 96.6 percent year on year. Besides the demand shrinkage in the international market, Mr. Huang said that China's high tariffs on coke export also constitute one of the important factors contributing to the sharp fall in coke exports.
In recent years, China has issued increasingly strict export policies for the coking industry, which is classified as an industry with high energy consumption, high pollution, and which uses natural resources. Since the cancellation of the export rebates on coke exports in 2004, China's coke export tariffs have been hiked several times, from 15 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2008, Mr. Huang stated.