China’s government establishes state-owned recycling company

A new People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-owned enterprise (SOE) called China Resources Recycling Group Co. Ltd. (CRRG) has been established to build a “national platform for recycling and reusing resources,” according to an announcement in the English language section of the Chinese government’s website.

According to an October online news item from the state-owned Xinhau news service, three of the new SOE’s main shareholders are metals production firms: steelmaker Baowu Steel Group, Aluminum Corporation of China (Chalco) and China Minmetals Corp., a producer of copper, lead and zinc.

A ceremony to introduce the company was held in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin. In announcements tied to that event, Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Chair Xi Jinping was characterized as saying, “The establishment of the company is an important decision and arrangement made by the CPC Central Committee to perfect an economy that facilitates green, low-carbon and circular development, and advance the building of a beautiful China on all fronts.”

Another high-level CPC official was quoted as saying, “Efforts must be made to establish a multi-layered and efficient system for recycling and reusing resources, implement a new round of large-scale equipment upgrades and trade-ins of consumer goods, and build a world-class industrial group specialized in recycling and reusing resources.”

According to the Xinhua report, CRRG will start with “registered capital” of 10 billion Chinese renminbi ($1.41 billion).

“In terms of the equity structure, the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, China Baowu Steel Group Corp. Ltd., China Petrochemical Corp., and China Resources (Holdings) Co. Ltd. each hold 20 percent, while Aluminum Corp. of China and China Minmetals Corp. each hold 10 percent,” writes Xinhua.

That same online article says CRRG will be involved in numerous metal recycling activities, including “scrap steel recycling, the recycling of durable consumer goods such as electronic products, trade-in business, and recycling used batteries from new-energy vehicles and electric bicycles, recycling decommissioned wind power and photovoltaic equipment, and recycling scrap nonferrous metals,” plus the recycling and processing of plastic scrap.

As the PRC’s steel, aluminum and copper industries have grown to become the world’s largest in the past three decades, SOEs have been the largest players in some sectors, but private sector companies and entrepreneurs have played a larger role in others.

China’s steelmaking sector is dominated by SOEs, and state firms also hold a large percentage of market share in the production of primary aluminum and primary copper.

Entrepreneurs and what the Chinese government calls small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), on the other hand, currently have a much larger presence in the secondary aluminum, recycled-content red metals and recycled metals trading and sorting sectors.