Silver is now a Strategic and Critical mineral

Already in global supply deficit for seven years, China is ranking silver as a strategic mineral and the US labels it as critical. The global supply/demand imbalance is rapidly deteriorating.

Markets seem blind to a supply crisis being engineered by China. Let’s walk through the table below to illustrate the point:

Between 2021—2025, China consistently exported all of her production and then some. In previous years, she had accumulated significant stocks which kept a lid on global prices during the deficit years of excess demand identified in the Silver Institute’s annual surveys.

That policy ended in September-October last year. We are aware of China’s policy on licencing rare earths announced on 9^th October, but silver export licencing restricted to a state-trading whitelist was to apply from 1^st January. But the spike in London lease rates for silver coincided with the rare earth announcement, which suggests that insiders knew what was coming for silver. Export quotas were probably being restricted at that time ahead of the new licencing system, bearing in mind that they had to be approved by government.