Gansu enjoys abundant resources and many varieties of non-ferrous metals. Its nickel reserves rank first in the country, while those of aluminum, copper, lead, zinc, antimony, tungsten and platinum-group elements are plentiful. The industry’s scale is expanding rapidly as the production volume of non-ferrous metals has maintained rapid growth in recent years. The province’s total production volume of the 10 major non-ferrous metals (copper, aluminum, lead, zinc, nickel, tin, stibium, magnesium, titanium and mercury) reached nearly 4 million tons in 2017, an increase of 6.4 percent over the previous year.
Due to the nonferrous metals clustered in Lanzhou, Jinchang and Baiyin, State-level nonferrous metal new material industrial bases have been formed in Gansu.