Tungsten is one of the strategic metals and has extremely important uses in many fields such as metallurgical machinery, petroleum chemistry, aerial and space industries, and national defence engineering. China is rich in tungsten resources and has a high capacity of tungsten ore mining and dressing. During the past 10-odd years its supply of tungsten exceeded the demand. By the end of 1998, the tungsten ore mining-dressing capacity of the country stood at about 60,000 tons, the smelting capacity approximately 70,000 tons, and the tungsten metal production capacity exceeded 35,000 tons. In recent years the global demand for metal tungsten has been about 31,000 tons, while China's metal tungsten production in 1998 amounted to about 22,000 tons, making up 71% of the global demand. China's present domestic demand is nearly 8,000 tons, and most of its products (tungsten concentrates, intermediate products and articles) are exported. In the recent 10 years and more, excess exports have caused a decline in the international tungsten price, unfavorable to the development of the tungsten industry in China.

The highly varied international and domestic tungsten markets makes it difficult to accurately predict the future demand for the material. In 1992~1995, the former Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources and the former CNNMIC conducted a study and demonstration of the degree of securing enough resources of China's major nonferrous metals for its national economic construction in the year 2010. As predicted by the study, the country's total demand for tungsten concentrates (domestic consumption plus exports) will be 46,000 tons in 2000, 48,000 tons in 2005, 50,000 tons in 2010, and 54,000 tons in 2020. Based on this, the cumulative demand for tungsten concentrates in the period 1992~2020 is estimated at 1.375 million tons, of which 375,000 tons will be needed in 1992~2000, about 480,000 tons in 2001~2010, and roughly 520,000 tons in 2011~2020. An analysis of the presently available reserves (WO3) and mine production capacity indicates that the country's tungsten resources can meet its demand.

Based on the above-mentioned prediction, we may make a disposition of the country's tungsten resources. If 1.2 tons of minable reserve (WO3) is needed for producing 1 ton of tungsten concentrates, the required minable tonnages (WO3) in different periods would be as follows: 450,000 tons in 1992~2000, 576,000 tons in 2001~2010, and 624,000 tons in 2011~2020, totalling 1.65 million tons. According to the data of mineral reserves at the end of 1994 published by the '96 Report on the Mineral Resources in China, the country's minable tungsten reserves (WO3) total 2.32 million tons. Therefore, the country's minable reserves are enough to meet its demand from the present up to the year 2020, and the degree of security of the resources is generally and macroscopically high. The country's wolframite industrial reserves, however, would be sufficient for mining only up to the year 2005 if no other new mines are constructed and no further geological prospecting conducted.

To guarantee a sustainable development of China's tungsten industry, it is necessary to maintain and give full play to its resource superiority. Numerous enlightened people in the circles of tungsten industry hold that with respect to the development strategy of China's tungsten industry, it is imperative to make the industry market-oriented and adaptable to the requirements of massive socialized production, actively open up both international and domestic markets, rationally dispose the various productive elements, energetically streamline the structure of the products, put emphasis on wolframite geological prospecting and development, appropriately produce tungsten concentrates and strengthen the development of intermediate products of tungsten. At the same time, it is also imperative to transform the mechanism of the business, restructure the assets and take the path of intensive management so that the resource superiority of the tungsten industry can be turned into the preponderance of economic efficiency.