Copper traders will have to start looking for alternative suppliers of this industrial metal. Indonesia plans to cut copper and wants to increase its share, which it will process at home.
The aim of the measure is to increase the added value of copper exports. Indonesia has so far mainly exported unprocessed or only partially processed copper ore. Last year, it delivered 1.3 million tons of this raw material to the global market.
However, the Indonesian government is responding to the growing demand for copper in the world and since 2023 wants to virtually ban the free export of this strategic metal from the country. This does not mean that Indonesian copper, in its raw state, does not enter the global market at all, the government only plans to introduce export quotas for raw copper. Thus, only as much copper ore reaches abroad as it cannot handle domestic capacities.
Tensions in the global copper market may increase after the final results of the Peruvian presidential election are officially announced. From the votes counted so far, it follows that this will be a close matter. The socialist candidate Pedro Castillo frightens mining companies. It could be said that he would enforce up to a 70 percent tax on the profits of companies that mine copper in the Andes. According to the latest reports, Castillo is about 0.2 percentage points ahead of his rival Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former Peruvian President Albert Fujimori.
