Views: 0 Author: Shanghai Customs Nandu Weekly Publish Time: 2022-08-19 Origin: 上海海关 12360热线
On August 3, according to the official website of the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Commerce spokesman said,According to relevant laws and regulations, it was decided to suspend the export of natural sand to Taiwan.The relevant measures will be implemented from August 3, 2022.So what is natural sand?The mainland suspends the export of natural sand to Taiwan, what impact will it have on Taiwan?
How to get natural sand
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noted that an article published by the China Mineral Association on its WeChat account once introduced that natural sand and gravel are generally obtained by directly mining natural sand and gravel resources and then screening them.
People usually call the sand and gravel collected from rivers, mountains and seas as river sand, mountain sand and sea sand, or collectively as natural sand, which is a natural mineral resource.
Hu Youyi, president of the association, introduced in an interview with the media that after the 21st century, with the rapid growth of my country's economy, more and more large-scale infrastructure construction and improved housing construction, the demand for sand and gravel is more vigorous, and the Chinese government's environmental protection awareness also getting stronger.Since 2008, many places in my country have successively issued documents to restrict or explicitly prohibit the mining of natural sand and gravel, no longer export natural sand and gravel to Japan, and make regulations on the sales of natural sand and gravel in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and other regions of my country: From 2008 to 2018, it will decrease by 10% every year.
what is the specific use
'The official WeChat account issued by the customs' has also issued a popular science 'natural sand': From the point of view of use, silica sand and quartz sand are used in the construction industry, glass industry or clean metal, etc.Soil sand, including kaolin sand, is mainly used for making casting moulds and refractory products; feldspar sand, used in the ceramic industry.Natural sands heat-treated to remove impurities are still classified in this heading.
The article also introduces that river sand is mostly used in construction, concrete, cementitious materials, road construction materials, artificial marble, and cement physical property testing materials (ie, cement standard sand).River sand can also be used for sand cleaning, rust removal, strengthening, forming, stress relief and surface cleaning and coating of various profiles in the fields of foundry, metallurgy, heat treatment, steel structure, frame structure, building, bridge, and mining.
Quartz sand is widely used in glass, casting, ceramics and refractory materials, smelting ferrosilicon, metallurgy, construction, chemical industry, plastics, rubber, abrasives and filter materials, etc. It is also used in modern track and field, football fields, golf courses and other artificial venues. ideal material.
Sea sand is the sand and gravel in the sea. It is the main raw material of machinery and foundry sand. It can also be used for grinding materials, sand cleaning, rust removal, oxide scale removal, ceramics and refractory materials, etc.
At present, the legal river sand mining field in China must obtain the 'River Sand Mining License' issued by the water conservancy department.
Why stop exporting
According to previous public information from the Ministry of Commerce, on March 1, 2007, for the purpose of protecting the environment and resources, mainland China banned the export of natural sand to Taiwan.Since then, Taiwan's sand and gravel industry and relevant parties have reported to the mainland through various channels that due to the shortage of natural sand resources on the island, the lack of natural sand supply and the rise in prices, the construction industry and even the overall economic development have been greatly affected. The export of natural sand to Taiwan will be resumed.
Taking into account the fact that more than 95% of Taiwan's natural sand imports come from the mainland, in order to benefit Taiwan's economic development and people's livelihood needs, the Ministry of Commerce and relevant departments, after careful research, announced on November 8, 2007 that it is possible to consider restoring natural sand. Sand exports to Taiwan.On November 13 of that year, six industry associations including the Taiwan Imported Sand and Gravel Association jointly organized a delegation to Beijing to communicate with the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Communications and other departments on relevant issues.Since then, the Ministry of Commerce has started preparations for resuming the export of natural sand to Taiwan, and issued a series of relevant policies, including 'Supplementary Standards and Related Matters for Natural Sand Export License Application', 'Conformity to Natural Sand Export License Application Standards' list of companies'.
How much does it affect Taiwan?
On March 7, 2008, the Ministry of Commerce issued the 'Application Procedures for Natural Sand Export License to Taiwan and Related Matters', announcing that the export of natural sand to Taiwan will be officially resumed from March 10. Provisions for the development of natural sand trade.
Cheng Youping, a professor at Taipei University, said in an interview with a CCTV reporter that the amount of sand and gravel imported by Taiwan from mainland China was more than 8 million tons in 2002, more than 15 million tons in 2003, and more than 31 million tons in 2006. ton, if this trend continues, Taiwan's import demand for natural sand from mainland China will continue unabated.According to Zheng Youping, according to statistics, the normal demand for sand and gravel in Taiwan is 66 million cubic meters a year, which is about 90 million tons of total demand, of which one third comes from the mining of river sand, and three One part comes from the mining of sand and underground rocks in the island, and the other one third is imported from the mainland.
Will it affect the chip industry?
The Beiqing Daily reporter also noted that there are views that the suspension of natural sand exports to Taiwan by the Ministry of Commerce will also have an impact on Taiwan's semiconductor, photovoltaic and other industries.Because Taiwan has been focusing on the manufacture of logic chips, the raw material of the chip is the silicon material in the sand.
However, Lin Jiafu, an engineer of a photovoltaic glass company in Fujian, said in an interview with Sino-Singapore Jingwei that according to the regulations of the General Administration of Customs on the export management of natural sand, this kind of natural sand should still be used in the construction industry, and can also be used in smelting, ordinary glass Production, etc., the silica sand used in photovoltaic glass production has high requirements on the purity of silica.
Chang Shuai, an associate researcher at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, said in an interview with the media that if you want to turn sand into silicon material, you must convert the silicon dioxide in the sand into silicon material with a purity of over 98%. The silicon is further purified, and then the silicon material with the purity up to the standard is made into monocrystalline silicon.'In short, only high-purity monocrystalline silicon can be used as a production material.'Chang Shuai also said that the silicon material used in the semiconductor industry is a variety of silicon-containing ores, such as vein quartz, quartz gravel, etc. .The reserves of these ores on the earth are very large, and the consumption of silicon materials in the high-precision industry of semiconductors is far less than that of the construction industry, so the problem of 'not enough sand' will not become a bottleneck for the development of the semiconductor industry.
