Stainless mills also maximised.their use of scrap last year, but scrap is now becoming harder to find and therefore more expensive in Europe and especially in the USA. Wholesale scrap suppliers cannot get everything they need from the smaller merchants because the latter cannot see how they will replace their stocks, and are therefore reluctant to sell. China has also been importing stainless scrap on a growing scale (see the chart below). Net imports into China reached 68,600 tonnes in the final quarter of 2005, making a total of 201,000 tonnes for the year, 46 percent up on 2005. Smaller, or more expensive, scrap supplies have also brought mills back in to the spot market for primary metal.
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