The global copper material trade network and risk evaluation: A industry chain perspective

With modern industry's increasing demand for products from all sectors of the copper industry chain, the trade relationships between countries for copper material are becoming increasingly closer. Additionally, different trade characteristics exist in different sectors of the industrial chain. Based on the data for the global copper trade in 2019and from the perspective of the copper industry chain, this paper analyzes the trade characteristics of the global copper industry chain and of important countries by constructing the trade networks for different links. In addition, we establish a two-dimensional evaluation index system to evaluate the comprehensive trade risks of the major importing countries for each link of the industrial chain, including their supply risks and vulnerability to supply constraints. The following conclusions are drawn. Copper processing is the link with the highest density in the global industrial chain supply chain network and the best connectivity and differentiation among trading countries. In the risk assessment of global copper import trade, Germany is a low risk country in the whole industrial chain. The United States and China are countries with relatively low risks in the whole industrial chain, and the trade risks are relatively high only in the selection link. Malaysia and Poland are high risk countries of the whole copper material industry chain, while Japan, the republic of Korea and Spain are the “critical” countries of trade risk, and it is necessary to focus on the control of trade supply risk.