Russia and China trade copper under the guise of scrap to bypass sanctions - reuters (photo)

According to Reuters, in December 2023 alone, Chinese firms in total made five purchases of products under the marking of "Copper Katanka" in the Russian Federation. Shopping through a company registered in the UAE made an income of about $ 65 million. Russia and China are selling a new copper rod under the guise of scrap to bypass Western sanctions and avoid taxes. About it April 15 reports Reuters.

According to the insiders of the agency, the catanka is crushed in a remote, closed to visit the China-Cinziang-Uygursky area. The new metal is ground to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish it from scrap. In this way, both exporters and importers can apply a favorable tariff, receiving good profits between new metal and scrap. Thus, in December 2023, an export duty on a copper rod in the Russian Federation was 7%, which is below 10% of duty on scrap.

Imports of a copper rod to China are taxed in the amount of 4%, but the import of Russian scrap duty is not applied to the import of Russian scrap. At the same time, the data of Chinese and Russian customs differ. In China, figures indicate that the PRC has purchased much more scrap in Russia.

At the same time, the Russian Copper Company (RMC) at the request of Reuters showed the amount of scrap exported to China, quite insignificant and commented on such a discrepancy by the fact that Russia's Federal Customs Service "temporarily does not provide foreign trade data. " At the same time, the agency emphasizes that the Russian Federation stopped publishing such statistics in April 2022, shortly after Russia's full -scale invasion of Russia.

At the request of Reuters for the trade of a new copper catanka with Chinese RMK companies, which is under Western sanctions, she said she was supplying her products only to domestic firms and refused further comments. The Agency's request and Chinese Customs, located in Cinjiah - the area bordering on the Russian Federation, did not comment on the request of the agency.

At the same time, according to the commercial data supplier, in December 2023, Chinese firms in total made five purchases of products under the marking "Copper Katanka" at the RSS factory in the Ural region of the Russian Federation. According to insiders, purchases made by Modern Commodity Trading DMCC, which is registered in the UAE, brought an income of about $ 65 million. I could not contact the UAE company to receive comments by the agency.

This is one of the most effective ways to mask new material - the newly made copper rod. Simply put, new long and thin copper -cleaning copper, which is mainly used for the manufacture of power cables, is usually rolled up for convenience of transportation. Copper scrap is a mixture of wires and tubes that were already used. They are cut into grain sized pieces or rolled into rolls and pressed like noodles for transportation.

Thus, crushed metal is more difficult to identify, which facilitates its sale to Chinese companies. That is, theoretically, there are no legal obstacles that could prevent China from buying new metal in Russia under the guise of scrap, thus avoiding sanctions and simultaneously minimizing taxes.