"By 2025, China will have over 12,000 nonferrous metal enterprises above designated size, representing a 39.2% increase from the end of 2020. In 2025, the total assets of these enterprises will exceed CNY6.6 trillion, an 8.2% increase from 2024; operating revenue will reach CNY10.2 trillion, a 13.9% increase from 2024; The industry's profit will reach a new historical high, totaling CNY528.45 billion, a 25.6% increase over 2024." At the press conference on the economic performance of the nonferrous metals industry in 2025, Chen Xuesen, Vice President of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, stated that the operational efficiency of nonferrous metals enterprises will significantly improve in 2025, with assets, revenue, and profits all reaching new records.
In 2025, the nonferrous metals industry achieved notable progress in industrial scale, technological innovation, international cooperation, layout optimization, green transformation, and digital-intelligent development. The historic leap in economic performance demonstrates the resilience of traditional industries in revitalizing their vitality. Chen Xuesen attributes this to synergistic efforts across multiple dimensions. Under the sustained reinforcement of macroeconomic and industrial policies, the industry's development potential has been fully unleashed.
Policy dividends continue to unleash market vitality. A series of national growth stabilization policies have taken effect, providing robust support for real economy development and infrastructure investment, directly driving demand for bulk metals like copper and aluminum. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and seven other departments jointly issued the “Work Plan for Stabilizing Growth in the Nonferrous Metals Industry (2025–2026),” charting a clear path for the sector's future development. Implementation plans for high-quality development in key sectors like copper, aluminum, and gold have successively taken effect, providing robust policy safeguards for enterprises to expand effective investment and advance transformation and upgrading.
High-level metal prices form solid support. Throughout 2025, prices for metals including copper, aluminum, lead, and zinc maintained overall high-level fluctuations, laying the foundation for industry profitability. Precious metals like gold and silver have shown particularly strong performance, with significant price increases becoming a major driver of industry profit growth. New energy metal prices have bottomed out and are rebounding, with industrial silicon and battery-grade lithium carbonate prices showing a marked recovery since the fourth quarter. Cobalt metal prices are expected to perform strongly in 2025, driving profit improvements for new energy metal enterprises and reversing the downturn.
Emerging industries expand growth opportunities. Upgrades, iterations, and expansions in downstream applications have created new growth drivers for the nonferrous metals sector. Rapid development in aerospace, new energy (including new energy vehicles and photovoltaics), next-generation information technology, and AI has continuously expanded market demand for nonferrous metal products, accelerating the industry's product structure upgrade toward high-value-added segments.
Although China's nonferrous metals industry achieved historic economic gains in 2025, the current international environment is increasingly complex with significantly heightened uncertainties. In 2026, the industry must further enhance resource security while strengthening high-end supply capabilities. Through innovation-driven development and structural optimization, efforts will focus on improving resource self-sufficiency rates, increasing product value-added, and consolidating international competitiveness.
The “Work Plan for Stabilizing Growth in the Nonferrous Metals Industry (2025-2026)” released in September 2025 serves as a crucial guide for industry development. Duan Shaofu, Director of the Heavy Metals Department at the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, believes that to implement the “effective qualitative improvement” outlined in the plan, it is necessary to strengthen resource security and build a diversified supply system. On one hand, domestic resource development must be advanced. The nation has launched a new round of strategic initiatives for mineral exploration breakthroughs to steadily increase domestic mineral self-sufficiency. On the other hand, the utilization of recycled metals must be vigorously promoted. This involves accelerating revisions to industrial policies related to non-ferrous metal recycling resources, expanding and standardizing imports of recycled materials; promoting advanced non-ferrous metal recycling technologies, particularly efficient and clean recovery techniques; and improving the standard system for recycled non-ferrous metals to open channels for high-quality recycled metals to enter high-end application fields.
In 2025, non-ferrous metal commodity prices saw notable increases. Regarding the closely watched price trends, Lin Ruhai, Director of the Policy Research Office at the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, stated that in 2026, the non-ferrous metals market will exhibit an overall pattern of “structural divergence and heightened volatility,” with the price center expected to shift further upward. Multiple domestic and international factors will provide robust support for non-ferrous metal prices in 2026. However, the market must remain vigilant against risks such as market reversals caused by shifts in overseas macroeconomic policies and divergent supply-demand expectations, as well as heightened volatility stemming from policy changes in major production areas and profit-taking by capital. Moving forward, we will closely monitor market dynamics, strengthen industry guidance, promote upstream-downstream coordination, and assist enterprises in seizing opportunities, stabilizing operations, and mitigating risks to jointly advance high-quality development in the sector.
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