The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) recent recommendation to China on its restriction of key steelmaking raw materials, including fluorspar, is unlikely to change the country’s long-term resource development goals.
Speaking at IM’s Fluorspar ’11 conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November, John Whittaker, partner of law firm Clyde & Co., said that whether or not China’s imminent appeal was successful, the case was unlikely to have “any great consequence” on China’s decreasing export trend.
The main issue is the length of the WTO dispute process - not meant to take more than one year, but which has exceeded two years in the case of China’s steel raw materials - in addition to the lack of compensation for injured parties.
Whittaker explained that any restrictions made by the Chinese government to its mining and export stance needed to...