China's State Reserves Bureau （SRB） has begun selling some of the metal it bought during the price collapse that accompanied the Great Contraction of late 2008 and early 2009. An initial tranche of 96,000 tonnes of aluminium was sold at the start of this week and the SRB has announced a tender for 50,000 tonnes of zinc on Nov. 9.
More auctions seem set to follow, although Tang Yan, an official with China's top planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission （NDRC）, said full liquidation of the stocks of both metals would not be "that fast", a form of words open to almost infinite interpretation.
SRB sales will have limited impact, other than psychological, on either local or international aluminium and zinc markets. The SRB's holdings of copper, however, are a whole different ball-game.
The difference lies in the Bureau's classification of what is strategic and what is not. Copper is. Aluminium and zinc are not. Copper is a strategic holding because China is structurally short of a metal that is essential for its industrialisation programme. It is a point rammed home with each month's import figures.
There is no similar structural domestic shortage of either aluminium or zinc. Indeed, the country has substantial amounts of excess production capacity.
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