The Responsible Cobalt Initiative (RCI) and Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) had signed an MOU on September 5^th. As one of the founding members as well as the Vice Chair of the RCI board, Huayou has always been active to respond in RCI activities.The Due Diligence Audit organized by RMI and RCI on Huayou’s Cobalt Supply Chain has been finished on Oct 16-18.

On the morning of Oct 16, the opening meeting of Due Diligence Audit on Huayou Cobalt’s Supply Chain was officially launched at the headquarters. At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Chen Hongliang, President of the Company and Director of Corporate Social Responsibility Steering Committee made a brief introduction of Huayou Cobalt. Mr Chen also placed high expectation on this audit, and required all the relative departments must actively cooperate with the auditing work. Then, as head of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Office, Bryce Lee briefly introduced Huayou’s Due Diligence Management on cobalt supply chain to the independent third-party auditing firm. Afterwards, the lead auditor of the auditing firm gave a brief overview of this on-site assessment including assessment background, assessment criteria as well as assessment process. The auditing goal was to assess whether the smelter and refiner had adequate and efficient systems in place to source responsibly. After the meeting, the auditing work was started up immediately.

The audit lasted three days. CSR office organized Raw Material Purchasing Department, Production Management Department and other departments to highly cooperate with the auditors to complete the document review of supply chain due diligence management; in addition, the on-site assessment on raw material warehouses, product warehouses as well as production process was conducted at both Huayou Tongxiang factory and Quzhou factory.

On Oct 18, the closing meeting of Due Diligence Audit on Huayou Cobalt supply chain was held at headquarters. At the meeting, the auditors pointed out the non-conformances found in the auditing process, and communicated with the relevant personnel of the company for confirmation. Bryce proposed that Huayou would promptly make improvement on the issues of the cobalt supply chain due diligence management process, and also greatly improve the company’s due diligence management ability. Meanwhile, Huayou would always be supportive to advocate this cooperation between the RCI and RMI, and would be committed to contributing the establishment of an inclusive, harmonious, and responsible cobalt supply chain.