China 2H copper imports to avg 80,000MT/month-Minmetals

摘要

China's monthly imports of refined copper in the second half of the year should recover from its recent monthly lows to average at least 80,000 metric tons, Minmetals Information Center's senior economist Zhou Feng said. Demand for copper in China, the world's second largest copper consumer, and not arbitrage activity, will spur imports, Zhou said. Minmetals Information Center is a unit of state-owned China Minmetals Non-Ferrous Metals Co. ltd., one of the largest copper importers in China. When prices of copper futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange are significantly higher than prices on the London Metal Exchange, Chinese market participants would carry out an arbitrage activity-simultaneously selling SHFE copper futures and buy on LME to profit from such price gaps. They would then deliver against their short futures positions on SHFE, by shipping metal from the the LME warehouses in Singapore. Copper imports at the start of the year were high because of arbitrage activity, Zhou said.