BEIJING: China’s imports of unwrought copper and products reached a new high of 4.83m tonnes for the whole year of 2014, up 7.4% year on year, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Wednesday.
Chinese importers have booked a large number of long-term contracts of refined copper products in 2014, a Chinese copper dealer said to local media, and most of the shipments have arrived already, despite the Qingdao copper fraud last year.A commodity-trading firm in Qingdao was investigated in June 2014 for using the same stockpiles of copper and aluminum oxide to secure multiple loans from Chinese and foreign banks.
Imports in December 2014 were at 420,000 tonnes, same as November but down 5% y/y.The price gap between London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Metal Exchange shrank in December, but the tightened-up monetary policy of Chinese banks has limited the buying,” a manager of China International Futures told IHS Maritime. He also added that the imports in January will increase.
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group also projected import increase. “With prices touching $6,000 a tonne, we would expect opportunistic buying to continue in the early part of 2015,” said the bank in a report this week.
Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange fell to $5,937 a tonne on Tuesday, the lowest since October 2009, according to Bloomberg.
