China’s copper consumption to increase in 2009 (2008 @ 4.85...

China’s copper consumption to increase in 2009 (2008 @ 4.85 million tonnes 2009 @ 5.1 million tonnes)

SANTIAGO, Dec 4 (Reuters) - A global economic crisis is tempering China's ravenous hunger for copper as exports suffer amid slumping demand abroad, a top China analyst said Thursday.

Shiela Ju, deputy manager for the international department of China's state-owned Antaike research group, said copper consumption would be about 4.85 million tonnes this year, and would grow to only 5.1 million tonnes in 2009.

"The export products will be impacted seriously this year and next year," she told copper market players in the Chilean capital Santiago.

Ju said at the copper industry event that China would consume 5.4 million tonnes of the metal in 2010.

The rate of consumption growth would slow over the next two years to between 5 and 6 percent, also because of a high base of comparison with previous years, she projected.

Ju said demand has been hit in areas like production of air conditioners and refrigerators, but was still growing in the power infrastructure sector.

"The power sector is still a beacon light," for demand, Ju said. "Copper uses in manufacturing have been declining."

She said that since October, when copper prices were chopped in half as global panic spread over a U.S. credit crisis, Chinese smelters have reduced production on soft demand.