China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has issued tin export quotas to Chinese companies amounting to 21,000 tons for 2010, down 9.87 year-on-year, according to a MOFCOM announcement on Oct. 30.

"The government's significant reduction of next year's tin export quota may be due to decreasing domestic refined tin and tin product supplies this year, as many domestic and overseas tin miners suspended operations during the economic downturn, which resulted in a supply shortage of tin concentrate," Lisa Chen, an analyst from ChinaCCM.com, told Interfax.

China exported 607 tons of refined tin and tin alloy in the first nine months of 2009, up 39.25 percent year-on-year, according to figures from the General Administration of Customs, while China's tin production fell by 1.5 percent year-on-year to 94,055 tons during the nine-month period.

MOFCOM has also cut 2010 export quotas for other industrial metal products, namely tungsten and tungsten products, antimony and antimony products, as well as light and dead burned magnesium. Meanwhile, export quotas for silver, molybdenum, indium and bauxite remain unchanged from this year's level.

The following table shows China's 2010 export quotas for various nonferrous metals. China's export quotas of industrial metal products for 2010

Product                        Export quota ('000 tons)   Y-o-y change (%)

Tungsten and tungsten products                      14.3              -2.05

Refined tin and tin products                          21              -9.87

Antimony and antimony products                      57.5              -2.04

Molybdenum and Molybdenum                           25.5                  0

products

Indium and indium products                         0.233                  0

Bauxite                                              930                  0

Silver                                               5.1                  0

Light and dead burned                              1,330              -5.00

magnesium

Source: MOFCOM

Note: Year-on-year change was calculated with MOFCOM's 2009 statistics