Abstract: Although holding a large market share in the international nonferrous import market, China lacks pricing power. Under this circumstance, using the modified SMR model, this paper selects the data from 10 main copper import markets during the period of 2000-2015, to estimate the international market power of China′s nonferrous import traders, and further explores the dominant factors influencing international market power. The results show that China′s copper import market is a typical imperfectly competitive market, in which the buyers lack market power while the sellers have strong market power. Among the 10 copper import market, Canada, America, Chile, Peru and Australia are the top 5 countries with monopoly power successively, having additional capacity for copper export prices; a high degree of import dependence, simple import structure and low industrial concentration are the main reasons leading to Chinese copper import traders′ lack of international market power. Based on the above results, China should strengthen market power and pricing power in the copper import trades by optimizing import structure, strengthening foreign investment and increasing industry concentration.

Key words: copper mineral resources, residual demand-supply, market power, pricing power