Analysis of copper material flow in China’s foreign trade from 2011 to 2016

Copper is the most important non-ferrous metal mineral in China.It is an inevitable trend to develop international trade around copper.Based on the material flow analysis and the scientific classification of commodities containing copper in the customs, this paper combines with the stratified sampling method to determine the copper-containing coefficients of the related types of Chinese copper-containing commodity import and export trade data.It systematically analyzes net imports of copper commodities, classification ratio, and the spatial pattern of China’s copper foreign trade from 2011 to 2016.The results show that the net import of copper increases from 2011 to 2016; the copper-containing commodities imported are mainly copper ores and concentrates, refined copper and scrap copper.About 73% of the copper-containing goods exported are copper products.The largest proportion is wire and cable, home appliances, computers and generators; copper ores and its concentrates, refined copper, and scrap copper imported are mainly from countries rich in copper resources.The export of copper products has spread all over the world; China’s copper resources have remained at high levels of foreign dependence from 2011 to 2016.