Eighteen provinces in China including Shandong and Anhui have rolled out plans to construct a total of more than 413,000 5G base stations this year, as China speeds up the investment in new infrastructure to bolster consumption amid the impact of coronavirus outbreak.

SMM learned from several zinc alloy exporters that the export suspension is expected to last for one to two months.

The temporary suspension of the Ambatovy project may barely impact the near-term supply of nickel briquette supply in China. Nonetheless, it will increase China’s dependence on nickel briquette from other sources of imports such as Australia and South Africa, given current low inventories of such materials in China. 

Malaysia has launched an antidumping investigation into flat-rolled products of non-alloy steel plated or coated with aluminum and zinc originating in or imported from China, South Korea and Vietnam.

This is in response to the central government’s call to build "new infrastructure" projects to counter the economic fallout due to the coronavirus and boost the country's economy in the long term. New infrastructure, different from traditional infrastructure construction such as railways, roads, and airports, can be understood as new public facilities serving the needs of new industrialisation. 

Zinc inventories in China continued to fall over the weekend, propelled by declines in east and north China where downstream consumers were keen to make purchases. SMM data showed that social inventories of refined zinc ingots across Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Hebei stood at 304,000 mt as of Monday March 30, down 3,000 mt from Friday March 27 and 20,000 mt from Monday March 23.

Social inventories of copper cathode in south China’s Guangdong province accelerated their slide over the weekend after the stocks shrank for the third consecutive week as of March 27. 

SMM data showed that stocks across eight consumption areas in China, including SHFE warrants, decreased 3,000 mt from last Thursday March 26 to 1.664 million mt as of Monday March 30.

SMM expects China’s silicon metal exports to rebound in March as deliveries for short-term orders struck after the CNY holiday were mostly fulfilled in March.

The US dollar fell against a basket of currencies for a fourth straight day on Friday, posting its biggest weekly decline in four years, as trillions of dollars worth of stimulus efforts by governments and central banks during the coronavirus epidemic helped temper a rout in global markets.