China's government on Monday published customs codes for copper, aluminium and brass scrap that meet new standards that it said could be imported without restriction from Nov. 1, even after a ban on foreign solid waste takes effect at the end of this year.

The long-awaited customs codes are 7404000030 for high-grade copper scrap, officially called "recycled copper raw materials", 7602000020 for aluminium scrap and 7404000020 for brass scrap, China's environment, industry and commerce ministries and customs administration said a joint statement.

Top metals consumer China published the new standards in January after scrap users lobbied for a recategorisation of very high-grade scrap from a waste to a resource, fearing a blanket ban on environmental grounds would leave the market short. The standards were supposed to take effect on July 1.

Material meeting the new standards "is not solid waste and can be imported freely," said the statement published on the website of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, adding the standards will be implemented from the start of next month.

Restricted copper and aluminium scrap that does not meet the new standards can still be imported until the end of 2020 under valid quotas.

Welcoming the move, the U.S.-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) said it had been urging China to recognise scrap as a valuable raw material for nearly 20 years.

"We are expecting China to establish additional standards for ferrous metals and plastic pellets in 2021," ISRI president Robin Wiener said in a statement.

ISRI noted the new-standard nonferrous material would enter China under the broad customs codes for copper and aluminium scrap - 74040000 and 76020000 - with the last two digits of the 10-digit codes distinguishing it as "recycled raw material".

It was not immediately clear whether such material from the United States would be subject to trade-war tariffs. China hit both U.S. copper and aluminium scrap with tariffs in 2019 before making them eligible for a one-year exemption in March.

 

(Reporting by Tom Daly, editing by Bernadette Baum and David Evans) ((tom.daly@thomsonreuters.com; +86 10 5669 2119;))