China March copper imports jump 16% as demand improves

China’s unwrought copper imports rose 16% in March from a year earlier, customs data showed on Friday, as industrial activity picked up and demand improved.

Imports of unwrought copper and products in China, the world’s biggest consumer of the metal, rose to 474,000 metric tons in March, from 408,174 tons in the same month a year earlier, the General Administration of Customs data showed.

The data includes anode, refined, alloy and semi-finished copper products.

“The double-digit growth was pegged at a relatively low base given copper demand was limited by COVID-related restrictions last March,” said He Tianyu, a copper analyst at commodity research house CRU.

Demand for copper, a metal widely used in the power, construction and transport sectors, was boosted by a pickup in manufacturing activity in the world’s second largest economy.

China’s manufacturing activity expanded for the first time in six months in March, an official factory survey showed.

Buyers booked more shipments in early March with better demand expectations, He said, adding however that actual consumption of the metal was dampened by a surge in copper prices later last month.
Global copper prices rallied late last month on news that Chinese copper smelters had agreed to jointly cut production at some loss-making plants to cope with a shortage of raw material.

The prospect of lower output from the world’s top refined copper producer boosted benchmark copper prices CMCU3 on the London Metal Exchange above $9,000 a ton for the first time since April 2023.

Subsequently that week, the most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange SCFcv1 set a record high at over 72,000 yuan ($9,948.32) per ton.

China imported 1.38 million tons of unwrought copper and product in the first quarter, up 6.9% from the same period in 2023.

Imports of copper concentrate came in at 2.33 million tons for March, up 15.3% on a year earlier, customs data showed.

The imports totalled 6.99 million tons in the first quarter, up 5.1% on year.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Siyi Liu and Andrew Hayley; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Susan Fenton)