BEIJING, Sept 26: China will get a big quantity of mineral products, particularly zinc and lead from Pakistan on regular basis. Zhuzhou Smelting, China’s second-largest zinc producer by capacity, is looking to acquire mines at home and abroad to tackle a shortage of raw materials, a senior company executive said on Monday.

Wang Jianjun, head of international trade at Zhuzhou, said the company would take delivery of 50,000 tons of zinc-in-concentrate and 20,000 tons of lead a year from Duddar mine in Pakistan, which would start operation in 2007.

Zhuzhou owns a stake of less than 40 per cent of the mine, he said, but would take its entire output. The majority owner of the mine is the state-owned China Metallurgical Construction Corporation.

Meanwhile, China will spend over $22 million to further expand the existing production capacity of Saindak project in Balochistan.

This is part of growing cooperation between the two countries in the mineral sector. The expansion project will be completed within a period of one year. It will enhance its production capacity to 30 per cent.

He said the production of copper from the Saindek has been very encouraging. An official of MRDL Company of China told APP that the company is increasing its cooperation with Pakistan in the mineral sector.

MRDL is a subsidiary of Metallurgical Construction Company of China (MCC) operating in the Saindak Copper-Gold project, with an initial investment of $26 million since August 2003.

The Sino-Pakistan co-operation in the mineral sector has opened up new business prospects and it is hoped that the Saindak will contribute tremendously in promoting their economic ties.

The sources expressed the hope that the Chinese companies would prefer to import coppers from Pakistan, which have its competitive advantage both quality and price-wise.

China’s demand for copper has increased greatly due to the rapid economic development and big expansion of infrastructure construction, said Tang Jing, an expert with the Tongling Nonferrous Metal Research Institute.—APP