In the Asian ferroalloy market in the period from January to March in 2014, it has turned out that the distributed quantity of Chinese low-priced ferro-silicon (roundabout products) via the third country like Vietnam has reached a level of being 3.1 times as much as regularly exported ones.

Of ferro-silicon (Si>55%) imported into respective countries in the period from January to March, the roundabout products comprised 32.4% in Japan, 55.3% in South Korea and 95.4% in Taiwan. The total quantity of these roundabout products is about 88,000 tons which is 3.1 times as much as the quantity China exported to these 3 countries (about 26,000 tons) as mentioned above.

Although the roundabout products was anticipated to increase its share furthermore, the situation made an about-turn in the end of March and showed the extreme scarcity of spot goods. This is because the border between China and Vietnam has been blocked temporarily. Albeit the distribution was thought to recover as the time goes, the border crossing route by way of the coastal areas where the quantity distributed was biggest has still been completely blocked because the relationship between China and Vietnam got worse in April and May.

The difference between the quantity of ferro-silicon imported by respective countries in Asia . The quantity and share of roundabout products calculated based on the import and export statistics of China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are as shown in Table 2. For a reference, the imported quantity and its share by main source in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are as shown in Tables 3, 4 and 5.

• [Editor:Phillip.Feng]