Rainforest Action Group launches its new report today on Jiangxi Copper, the Chinese mining company which invested $36 million US into SolGold in December
Only weeks after Canada ordered three Chinese companies to give up their investments in Canadian minerals in November 2022, citing national security, SolGold announced Jiangxi would become a new investors to drive development of its flagship project Cascabel in the north of Ecuador.
Jiiangxi Copper is the largest integrated copper producer in the People's Republic of China. Its principal business includes: copper, gold and silver mining, dressing, smelting, processing, extraction and production of sulphuric acid.
As of late 2022, Jiangxi was the 46th largest mining company in the world. Jiangxi operates 6 mines in China and one in Kazakhstan. It owns the biggest copper smelting and refining complex in the world, at Guixi in China, which has discharged significant pollution into the local environment, particularly metals (copper, cadmium, arsenic, lead and others) and acid gases (sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid). Fifteen villages with a total population of 10,000 people have been affected by the smelter, with hair and urine samples showing high concentrations of heavy metals. Farmland surrounding the smelter has also been contaminated, including 132 hectares of rice farmland and 6 hectares of vegetable farmland.
More on Jiangxi's operations can be found in the report here.
