12th Rare Earth Summit

May 27-28, 2021
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

11th Aluminum Raw Materials Summit

May 20-21, 2021
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

9th Magnesium Summit

April 15-16, 2021
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

13th World InBiGeGa Forum

March 25-26, 2021
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

7th World Antimony Forum

June 13-14, 2019
Changsha, Hunan, China

7th Refractory & Abrasive Materials Summit 2019

May 23-24, 2019
Qingdao, Shandong, China

10th Aluminum Raw Materials Summit

May 16-17, 2019
Zhengzhou, Henan, China

11th Rare Earth Summit

May 9-10, 2019
Qingdao, Shandong, China

8th Magnesium Summit

April 11-12, 2019
Zhuhai, Guangdong, China

12th World InBiGeGa Forum

March 14-15, 2019
Zhuhai, Guangdong, China

6th World Manganese & Selenium Forum

May 21-22, 2018
Hainan Sanya, China

Interview with Wang Yongbin, president of Jiangsu Orient Stainless Steel Electronic Trade Center (JSOSE)

Jiangsu Orient Stainless Steel Electronic Trade Center (JSOSE), founded in 2007, holds orders trading patterns and Orient Marketplace spot patterns as core business and it has over 10,000 kinds of products, covering 200 series, 300 series and 400 series of stainless rolling plate, flat plate, cathodes nickel and ferronickel of various quality and specification.
Wang Yongbin: Adopting electronic trading in volatile nickel market minimizes operational risks
----Interview with Wang Yongbin, president of Jiangsu Orient Stainless Steel Electronic Trade Center (JSOSE)
Asian Metal: Thank you for accepting our exclusive interview. First, Could you please introduce JSOSE to us, about its business and products?
Wang: Thank you for the interview of Asian Metal. Jiangsu Orient Stainless Steel Electronic Trade Center (JSOSE), founded in 2007, holds orders trading patterns and Orient Marketplace spot patterns as core business and it has over 10,000 kinds of products, covering 200 series, 300 series and 400 series of stainless rolling plate, flat plate, cathodes nickel and ferronickel of various quality and specification.
Asian Metal: It is said that the business model of your company is innovative, realizing joint relationship of futures market and spot market. Could you please tell us the features and advantages of the model?
Wang: We sell our products online as we break the traditional business pattern of one-to-one by employing a method of one-to-many, providing the two sides with what they need. The point is to offer service to stainless traders and focus on the cultivation and reserves of talents with perfect organization, including settlement, market development, delivery, risk management to meet the demand of different clients. We emphasize the importance of communication with clients and know the demand of deals on time by holding salons and investment and financing road show in order to improve the quality with targeted services.
Asian Metal: Global economy keeps sluggish in 2012 and the demand of nickel and stainless steel remains weak at home and abroad. Could you please summarize the market in Q1.
Wang: The current sluggish stainless steel market sees no improvement with low buying activity in spot market and most mills keep operation with losses. With a pessimistic attitude, a large stainless steel mill sharply lowered the price of ferronickel to RMB1,300/mtu (USD207/mtu). The chrome ore market is also greatly affected as the price sees no increase currently after traders hold offers at a high level. According to a source at ports, chrome ore traders are more cautious to move the material, expecting alloy plants to lower the price of iron. In addition, the market is difficult to pick up and traders have little confidence to the future market as the international market keeps slack.
Asian Metal: The downstream demand remains lackluster and the business still moves slowly. There are high level of stocks in spot market and companies face high risk of operation. How can cathodes nickel and ferronickel companies avoid the risk by electronic commerce?
Wang: The business is still inactive in spot market and most clients are pursuing new patterns of marketing, including electronic commerce. We can deals with 50,000tpd of products through long-term main contracts and Orient Marketplace can also move 500tpd. Electronic commerce can affect the trend for spot price. Companies also use various business patterns, including hedging, to avoid risks.
Asian Metal: Hedging is accepted by more and more companies as it is an efficient way to avoid risk. Would you mind introducing ways to hedge in futures market?
Wang: The market keeps weak this year. It is hard for traders to do business. The spot offer of cold rolled stainless steel coils held at RMB19,900/t (USD3,174/t) in February, while the contract price ran at RMB20,300/t (USD3,238/t) in Orient Marketplace futures market.
A cold rolled stainless steel 304 trader purchased 100t of stainless steel at RMB19,800/t (USD3,158/t) and planned to set the price at RMB20,300/t (USD3,238/t) for contract in May in advance from futures market in order to avoid the risk of losses. The price went down to RMB18,600/t (USD2,967/t) in May, while the contract number was at RMB18,280/t (USD2,915/t) in Orient Marketplace. Meanwhile, a stainless steel plant was satisfied with the price and purchased at RMB18,280/t (USD2,915/t). However, a customer was in urgent need to purchase in the spot market. Although he settled the contact, he did not obtain the products as the delivery date. In this case, he can sell those products in the Orient Marketplace. Finally, a plant purchased the product at a low price at RMB18,280/t (USD2,915/t), while the trader sold the product at up to RMB20,300/t (USD3,238/t). Both sides got what they want.
Date Stainless steel trader(seller)Stainless steel plants(buyer)
FebruaryMarket priceBuy at RMB19,800/t (USD3,158/t)----
Futures market priceSell at RMB20,030/t (USD3,238/t) contract in May----
MayMarket price18600
Futures market price18280Buy at RMB1,828/t contract in May

Asian Metal: Could you give us a brief introduction of the difference between London Metal Exchange and Oriental Stainless Steel Electronic Trading Centre? Furthermore, is there any relationship between the price fluctuation of London Metal Exchange and domestic trading centre?
Wang: They are definitely different. Firstly, clients of London Metal Exchange are random while the most clients of the Orient Marketplace are engaged in nickel and stainless steel business and Orient Marketplace focuses to provide a way for stainless steel and nickel traders to do business.
As for the relationship, prices of domestic stainless steel usually follow the trend of nickel foreign market, but the range is different as the basic policies vary. For example, the contract price in Orient Marketplace only went down by a few hundred Yuan per ton while the nickel price in LME dropped by USD1,000/t previously.
Asian Metal: The government strictly regulates the large commodity electronic trading. How does your company meet the requirement, and would you introduce the third-part supervision mechanism for us?
Wang: The government strictly regulates the business of large commodity in order to rectify spectulations. We have the largest domestic stainless steel distributing centre that delivers products every day with 10% increase of delivery per month. The centre still aims to provide a platform for traders to avoid the risk.
We enter a third-part custody agreement with Huaxia Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China and clients can check the business capitals from the official website, giving the right to banks to regulate the funds of subsidiary ledger rather than the general ledger. The centre is not accessible to cash deposit of clients.
Huaxia bank is the first of its kind to launch third-part settlement system and our centre is the first to employ the system.
Traders’ actual money is kept in the internal account of the bank, which is in accord with the detailed accounts of Orient Marketplace.
Binding booth number and bank account means binding withdraw number, locking out the capital flows.
The bank’s B2B platform will send messages to each trader after the trading centre successfully completes settlement every day.
The bank provides two ways including internet and phone to check the remaining sum of subsidiary ledger.
The withdrawal of cash: traders withdraw the funds through trading centre.
The bank’s B2B platform prints the receipt of deposits and withdraws.
Asian Metal: Could you please share with your company’s short-term plan; do you plan to increase electronic business of ferronickel?
Wang: We are embarking on the plan to increase delivery of stainless steel plate, nickel cathodes and ferronickel, which is expected to be online in the coming month.
Asian Metal: The price of nickel keeps falling as the government carries out many restrictions on downstream real estate market. What do you think of the nickel and stainless steel market this year?
Wang: As for European debt crisis, Euro-zone governments agreed to release EUR4.2 billion to aid Greece, easing the concerns in the market, but the focus turned to Spain as it will announced the bank bailout system plan on Friday. The Spanish bond yields increased to over 6% as sources worried that Spanish Central Bank cannot afford the large amount of capitals. If too much negative news is reported, ECB is likely to announce new financing plan. Chinese readjustment of economy comes to an end for now. And the government has announced to cut the deposit rate to boost liquidity. Meanwhile, China’s policies on export indicated that the government will center on promoting the development of economy and provide more job opportunities, which is a new change. The capital investments on agriculture decreased from last year as the economy kept sluggish, causing the demand to exceed supply. In terms of technology in futures market, the price of international products dropped from a high level and that of copper on LME moved from USD8,800/t. The price will keep a downward trend if it fell below USD8,000/t, which is a bottom line. Meanwhile, the price of nickel on LME will also keep falling if nickel price on LME drops below USD17,000/t. Therefore, the market will keep fluctuating with downward trend in the future, given the current weak demand.
Asian Metal: Thank you for accepting our interview and your support to us. Wish your company a brighter future!