Chinese zinc smelters spot treatment charges for imported zinc concentrate averaged $105/mt in July, down 8.7%, or $10/mt, from the previous month as concentrate supply tightened, China Investment Futures said in its commodity report Thursday. 

Domestic zinc concentrate TCs averaged Yuan 4,900/mt ($735/mt) in July, down 4% or Yuan 200/mt from June. 

The brokerage said smelters have scaled back imports because of large losses stemming from imported concentrate trade as compared with domestic trade. 

Chinas net zinc concentrate imports are forecast to plunge by 40% year on year to 90,000 mt in 2016, while domestic zinc concentrate output is expected to grow just 3.5% to 4.4 million mt over the same period, according to Chinese metals consultancy Beijing Antaike in a zinc sector report issued in end-June. 

Antaike also forecast China to have a zinc concentrate deficit of 391,000 mt in 2016, widening from a deficit of 9,000 mt last year. 

Another Chinese brokerage Huatai Futures, said in its zinc sector report Thursday that it will be hard for zinc concentrate supply to rise greatly this year, with the shortage seen difficult to be replenished. 

Huatai said TCs for both imported and domestic zinc concentrate had fallen as concentrate supply tightened, citing the halt in mining operations last month in Huayuan county, central Chinas Hunan province -- a main zinc mining zone in China -- as well as the slower-than-anticipated restart of some other mines in China. 

The brokerage expects zinc concentrate supply in China to stay tight in the next few months. 

Hunan is to shut more than 400 mines before end-2018, with more than 200 mines to be shut within 2016, and no less than 100 mines to be shut in 2017 and 2018, in line with the provincial governments goal of ensuring safety production of its non-coal mines by 2020, the Hunan branch of State Administration of Work Safety said in a report on its website in March.