China’s mining projects in Latin America will see an output boom over the next several years, but the country’s investment in the region’s resources industry will slow down, analysts said. Chang Xingguo, Project Director of International Minerals and the Finance Department of the China Mining Association (CMA), said China has invested in many copper and iron ore projects in Latin America since 2005, when commodity prices were high. “Those projects will gradually start production this year,” Chang said. Most of the investments in the region are copper mines in countries such as Peru, a major copper producer, and Brazil. Chang said that when copper projects start operation in the next several years, China will likely have a bigger say in the international cooper market. China has about 23 overseas cooper projects with a total reserve of about 59 million metric tons, according to data from the China Mining Association. Those projects have an overall annual production capacity of 1.7 million tons, but the operation timetable is uncertain due to factors in foreign countries such as environmental issues, approvals from both authorities and local communities and infrastructure construction. Wei Zengmin, Analyst with industrial consultancy Mysteel, said investment in Latin American refining plants and steel mills will become more common in the future. Globally, China’s outbound mining investment has been increased rapidly in the past 10 years, reaching CNY20.2 billion by the end of 2013 while the figure was only CNY1.8 billion in 2004. Those figures include investments in the energy sector. China’s demand for iron ore, copper, aluminum and nickel will continue to increase, and CRU predicted that China’s reliance on foreign supplies of raw materials will not decline in the next 10 years, the China Daily reported.