[China Iron Ore Brief: Domestic Iron Ore Prices May Have Some Upside Room Next Week] This week, prices in China’s iron ore concentrates market showed mixed performance. By region, prices in Tangshan, Qian'an, Qianxi and other areas of Hebei were raised slightly by 1-5 yuan/mt; prices in Chaoyang, Beipiao, Jianping and other areas of western Liaoning remained relatively stable; east China also saw gains of 15-20 yuan/mt. Looking ahead to next week, domestic iron ore resources were still tight. Demand side, according to SMM

This week, 304 stainless steel scrap off-cuts prices in east China strengthened to 10,100-10,200 yuan/mt; stainless steel scrap off-cuts of the same specification in Foshan also rose, with prices at 9,800-10,100 yuan/mt. Raw material cost side, the current cost of producing stainless steel entirely from stainless steel scrap was about 14,218.64 yuan/mt, while the cost of production using only high-grade NPI was 14,686.86 yuan/mt. This week, stainless steel scrap prices rose slightly, mainly driven by macro news, firm futures, and gains in finished product prices. The US-Iran geopolitical conflict was unlikely to end in the short term, while news related to Indonesia's export tax and windfall tax on nickel products continued to ferment. These two bullish factors jointly kept SS futures holding up well. At the same time, supported by higher guidance prices from stainless steel mills, spot stainless steel finished product prices also strengthened and moved higher, directly transmitting to the stainless steel scrap market and pushing its prices up slightly. Performance on the substitute raw material side diverged. Affected by stainless steel mills' continued efforts to push for lower prices, high-grade NPI generally remained stable this week, with no obvious change; high-carbon ferrochrome, however, was dragged down by a sharp buildup in chrome ore inventory, making its price rally difficult to sustain, and its overall support for stainless steel scrap was limited. Although stainless steel scrap still maintained a clear economic advantage over high-grade NPI, providing some support for its prices, the constraining factors were also prominent. Under the impact of the reverse invoicing policy, the shortage of tax invoices had not been alleviated, and current stainless steel scrap inventory remained high. These two factors jointly capped the upside room for stainless steel scrap prices, resulting in only a slight increase rather than a sustained upward trend. Overall, the stainless steel scrap market showed a mild upward pattern this week, characterized by "futures support, finished product-driven gains, and evident constraints." Although short-term supportive factors remained in place, upward momentum was insufficient due to the drag from tax invoice and inventory issues. If the tax invoice problem remains difficult to resolve effectively in the short term, stainless steel scrap prices are expected to continue fluctuating within a range.

Concluding our series, we shift focus to 2026's emerging NdFeB growth drivers: robotics, low-altitude economy, and electric two-wheelers. While viewed as the "second growth curve," we analyze their actual demand support amidst current macro and industry cycles to determine if they can offset traditional sector slowdowns.

[SMM Copper Wire and Cable Operating Rate] The operating rate of SMM copper wire and cable enterprises was 70.77% this week, up 0.24 percentage points MoM. Overall operating performance was stable, while market performance was relatively mediocre. During the week, the pullback in copper prices suppressed the release of new orders, but enterprises had ample orders on hand and pending delivery, supporting basically stable production. New orders across downstream segments were generally weak, with demand in the home decoration sector particularly mediocre due to rising plastic raw material prices.

On March 25, the Sichuan Qimingxing 100 MW/200 MWh user-side ESS project, invested in and developed by the Municipal Industrial Investment Company, officially broke ground at the plant of Sichuan Qimingxing Aluminum Co., Ltd. The project was a key undertaking jointly developed by Meishan Industrial Investment Company and Sichuan Qimingxing, with a total investment of approximately 180 million yuan and a site area of about 30 mu, and adopted a technologically mature and performance-stable LFP battery BESS. Upon completion, the project is expected to deliver annual discharge of about 100 million kWh, effectively optimizing the enterprise's power consumption structure and improving the reliability of power supply.

Recently, the 2025 Electrochemical Energy Storage Black Start and Frequency Regulation Key Technology Research and Application Project of Huadian Group Wuchang Branch was officially and successfully accepted for grid connection. The project was jointly advanced by Huadian Group, Shanghai Electric Power Transmission & Distribution Group, and REPT Battero. As a key pilot project under the national 14th Five-Year Plan, the project took the lead in achieving engineering application, marking that REPT Battero's 324Ah battery cell has 1P C-rate performance and has passed testing under relevant national standards, enabling it to participate in future grid-side frequency regulation projects. The project accepted for grid connection this time is located in Wuhan, Hubei, with a total capacity of 9MW/9.554MWh, consisting of two 4.5MW/4.5MWh energy storage units. It is intended to build electrochemical energy storage black start capability for two sets of 9E-class combined-cycle generating units and, when the ESS is idle, to participate in secondary frequency regulation ancillary services for the power grid through the combined thermal power and energy storage frequency regulation mode.

[Zinc Price Center Rose, Demand Performance Varied Across Die-Casting Zinc Alloy Segments] This week, operating rates of die-casting zinc alloy remained rangebound. From the perspective of end-user orders, demand performance varied across segments. Demand for orders of electronic products and auto parts was relatively strong recently, while traditional hardware products were dragged down by the real estate market and performed relatively average; orders for luggage zippers were weak, but apparel zipper orders at some enterprises were relatively steady......

[Grain-Oriented Silicon Steel Prices Will Remain in a Consolidation Trend Next Week, with Limited Fluctuations] Market feedback indicated that the current core downstream demand mainly came from transformer manufacturing enterprises. Affected by the industry's traditional off-season, enterprises had weak purchase willingness and mostly adopted strategies of consuming their own inventory and making small-volume replenishments on demand. Acceptance of current prices remained stable, but there was a lack of momentum for large-scale procurement, resulting in relatively weak actual transaction performance for grain-oriented silicon steel. Due to inventory pressure on some specification resources, traders had limited room for slight discounts.

[Traders Raised Spot Quotes, and Downstream Buyers Made Purchases Based on Demand]: Ningbo spot premiums continued to rise this week, with the weekly average price up 50 yuan/mt WoW. As of this Friday, Ningbo spot prices against the 2604 contract were quoted at parity, with a premium of 60 yuan/mt against Shanghai, and the premium against Shanghai widened during the week..

Recently, the team led by Meng Qingbo at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, once again set a new record in new-type thin-film PV copper-zinc-tin-sulfur-selenium (CZTSSe) technology, raising the battery’s certified efficiency to 16.6%, marking the technology’s official crossing of the critical threshold for industrialisation from 15 to 16. Composed of common, low-cost elements such as copper, zinc, and tin, CZTSSe materials not only avoid reliance on rare metals but also offer strong resistance to space radiation. At present, the team has also completed the development of high performance flexible batteries and modules, and this technology is expected to achieve large-scale application in fields such as low-Earth-orbit satellite internet, space-based energy bases, and aerospace equipment in the future. This progress not only established China’s internationally leading position in this field, but also opened up strategic, high-value-added application prospects for tin metal in new energy and deep-space exploration.