What Shall Be Paid Attention to When Import/Export Natural Sands to China?
The common natural sands normally include river sand, silica sand and sea sand that play different roles in industry.
Natural stones, after being collided and rubbed over and over again by water forces for a long time in nature, form river sand which is a type of non-metal ore with complex ingredient, relatively smooth surfaces and lots of impurities. River sand is widely used in construction, concrete, binding materials, road building material, artificial marble and physical performance testing material for cement, and so on.
Natural silica sand is mainly from silica deposits and is featured by high SiO2 content, low silt content, uniform and reasonable size composition, round particles, clean and smooth surface and good mobility. Very different from river sand, silica sand is high in Moh's hardness and is able to form relatively strong adhesive strength with cement slurry which increases the bending and compressive strength and slurry. Silica is widely applied in glass, foundry, ceramic and fireproofing materials, smelting ferrosilicon, metallurgy, construction, chemical industry, plastic, rubber, grinding material and filter materials.
Sea sand is formed after being washed, rolled, crashed and polished by sea water for a very long period. Except SiO2, sea sand also contains a small amount of chloridion, feldspar, calcium, magnesium and mica. Sea sand is mainly used as materials for mechanical and foundry sand. It can also used in grinding material, cleaning, rust removal, ceramic and fireproofing materials.
Normally engineering construction mainly uses sea sand. If use silica sand or sea sand, inspection shall be carried on in accordance with technical requirements.
At present, river sand pits in China shall obtain river sand dredging permit from Water Department. The permit specifies in details the job location of the sand pit, the length, width and depth of the sand dredging spot and attaches the map of the sand dredging spot. China government’s control over sand dredging has increase the costs for river sand dredging, which pushes some importers start to import river sand from Southeast countries.
The classification and import duty for natural sand
In accordance with PRC Import & Export Tariff regulations 2020 and Annotation Commodities and Items in tariff regulations, except that metallic mineral ore with commercial extracting value shall be classified to Chapter 26, Item 2505 covers all kinds of natural sea sand, lake sand river sand and stone sand which is tiny sand naturally spit from stone but not include human-made sand and powder which shall be classified to Item 2517 or classified as building stones.
Item 2505 mainly includes
1. silica sand and quartz sand which is used in construction industry, glass industry or cleaning metal.
2. Sand soil, including Kaolin clay sand, mainly used in making casting molds and fireproofing products
3. feldspathic sand, used in ceramic industry
Natural sand that has been heat treated to remove impurities is also in this Item. But the Item 2505 does not include gold sand, platinum sand, rutile powder, menaccanite, monazite sand which shall be classified to Chapter 26. The item does not include tar sands (Item 27.14 )
When declare natural sand, usage and source (for example sea sand, lake sand, or river sand) shall be declared.
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