Consumption trends

摘要

The most impressive aspect of this year's demand picture is that with the exception of Turkey all of the countries shown in the consumption table on page 6 saw their copper offtake increase. Indeed, our figures suggest that copper demand has grown by 6.9 percent this year, which is not only the highest level since 1979, but also the highest ever increase in terms of total tonnes of copper. This year's most impressive performers have been China, the US and Japan. And of the three there can be no denying that China sits firmly at the top of the class. At the start of the decade its annual copper offtake was a 1.9mt, but following three years of double-digit growth China has risen firmly thorough the rankings, and with expected consumption of nearly 3.5mt this year, China is now the world's largest cathode consumer. Much of the jump has been due to the country's infrastructure spending, and its electrification programme, which is said to account for over 40 percent of China's copper consumption. But there has also been a massive jump in the use of copper in goods that are produced for export (mainly to the USA), and growth in these sectors seems far from assured.