At Tuesday’s launch of two of the eight warehouse facilities in the city certified by LME, Chan said the development was “of great significance for supporting [China’s] development strategy” and “enhancing Hong Kong’s status as an international financial and shipping centre”.
Establishing a delivery point near mainland China – one of the world’s largest markets for metal consumption and export – “will undoubtedly greatly reduce logistics time and costs compared with relying on overseas warehouses, thereby improving allocation efficiency”, he added.
China is the world’s largest non-ferrous metals producer and also the top consumer of six major non-ferrous metals: copper, aluminium, zinc, lead, nickel and tin. In 2024, the mainland’s trade in non-ferrous metals reached US$368.79 billion, an 11.4 per cent increase from the previous year.
The rising demand for metals has been driven by the growth of green technologies. The production of electric vehicles and solar panels requires metals such as copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt – all of which are traded on the LME.
China’s rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centres, following the emergence of DeepSeek earlier this year, further fuels demand for copper.
