China copper imports climb 15% on seasonal demand, brighter outlook

“Buying emerged in the first two weeks when prices were relatively low,” He Tianyu, a copper analyst at commodity research house CRU, said.

Copper users also rachet up restocking activity in September for the Golden Week holiday at the start of month when consumers typically buy products that have copper in them, such as white goods and cars.

Also supporting better import was higher global copper prices that resulted in an open arbitrage window for traders to make profits by importing, analysts and traders said.

Last month, the world’s second largest economy unveiled its biggest stimulus since the pandemic to boost growth, cut mortgage rates and loosened restrictions on home purchases.

That compounds an outsized interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve, brightening the demand outlook for copper and boosting prices.

Further supporting import appetite was lower inventories in China. Deliverable copper stocks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange extended declines last month to a seven-month low at 140,408 tons on Sept. 27.

Despite the monthly increase, the figure was close to the 480,426 tons imported in September 2023.

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

For the first nine months of the year, copper imports were up 2.6% at 4.09 million tons, the data showed.

Imports of copper concentrate last month stood at 2.44 million tons, up 8.9% from a year earlier, customs data showed.

Copper concentrate imports totalled 21.06 million tons for the first nine months, up 3.7% from a year earlier.

(By Siyi Liu; Editing by Toby Chopra and Alison Williams)