More than 257 kg of nickel has been seized in 25 smuggling cases in the Gongbei Customs, Zhuhai City, south China's Guangdong Province, according to a statement posted on China Customs' website on Monday.
Nickel has become more alluring to traffickers in the past two months due to its big price difference in China and in the international market, said a survey by the Gongbei Customs.
On Nov. 18, a women surnamed Liang from Macao was detained in Gongbei after she was detected taking 13.5 kg of nickel in 10 bricks into China by tying them to her belly and legs with sticky tapes.
On Nov. 30, police seized four bags of nickel, weighing 10 kg each, from under a passenger's seat when a car licensed both in Macao and Guangdong was checking through the Gongbei Customs.
"Such smuggling cases, quite rare before, have kept increasing since October," said an official with the Gongbei Customs, which cracked 15 nickel smuggling cases in the first 25 days this month and four cases on Nov. 25 alone.
The international price of nickel now stands at about 230,000 yuan (31,000 U.S. dollars) per ton, but the domestic price has risen to 280,000 yuan (37,800 U.S. dollars) per ton after a price rise in August.
China, with a nickel reserve ranking ninth in the world, is in great need of this rare and valuable non-ferrous metal, to help fuel its rapid development of the stainless steel industry.
But nickel deposits in China are buried deep underground and it is costly to exploit them, experts said.
Nickel, ductile and resistant to corrosion and oxidation, is widely used in the production of stainless steel, special steel as well as the light industry and electroplating industry.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article