China could export more refined zinc than it imports for the first time in four years in 2026, analysts said, as growing supply and weak demand at home push companies to supply the metal to the world’s markets.
China, which produced roughly half the world’s zinc last year, has long also been a major importer of the metal mainly used to galvanize steel.
However, net refined zinc exports are expected to be 30,000 tons this year, according to Alice Fox, commodities strategist at Macquarie Group, versus 209,767 tons of net imports last year and 428,890 tons in 2024.
At home, the refined zinc supply growth is forecast to outpace demand this year at 4.2% to 1%, according to Fox, as new capacity comes online while demand is still saddled by the struggling property sector.
Meanwhile, the reverse is true in the rest of the world, due to the production suspension or scale-down of smelters in Peru and Kazakhstan because of accidents, tightening supply of zinc concentrate. In addition, production costs have risen due to higher energy costs caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
“China got very close to self-sufficiency in refined metal by end-2025,” said Olga Hepting, principal zinc analyst at the CRU Group, a consultancy. “It will likely remain in surplus while the rest of the world is in deficit in 2026, leading to exports, possibly in the third to the fourth quarter.”
Prices outside China are also rising more rapidly than the domestic benchmark. The most-traded zinc contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was up 3% this year as of Friday, while the London Metal Exchange’s global benchmark has gained 11%.
While China was still a net importer in the four months to April, net imports fell 62% from a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations of Chinese import data. Analysts expect the flip to exports to occur in the second half of this year.
To be sure, Hepting noted that should the Iran war drag on, the global hit to demand from higher energy prices could eat into China’s export markets.
(By Amy Lv and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
