China Minmetals Rare Earth starts new mining project in Hunan

The “New Silk Road” is the term for an ambitious trade corridor first proposed by the Chinese regime under its current president, Xi Jinping, in 2013.

Industrial metal markets are taking a breather as they await tangible evidence that China's latest stimulus package is feeding through to a flagging manufacturing sector.

The country's sprawling steel sector, which has cut 150 million tonnes of steel production over the past three years, was "far from achieving its tasks" amid Beijing's supply-side reforms, the association reports.

China will maintain a slowdown in coal imports from Australia until Beijing has assessed government policy in Canberra after federal elections in May.

China and a quest for battery minerals have injected momentum into a long U.N. process to agree to a law on deep sea mining.

A couple of long-running outages together with curtailments in Europe caused aluminium production outside China to dip 1.4%.

Heightened geopolitical and economic uncertainty pushed central banks to diversify their reserves and focus on investing in safe and liquid assets.

The document divides operations into six levels, from zero (entirely manual) to five (fully autonomous), and assists in the preparation of a business case for autonomous mining, depending on level and needs.

The outlook for commodities is bullish, according to Citigroup, which expects raw materials to be supported by a potential US-China trade deal, improved demand from China, and a weaker dollar.