china copper ore imports to rise 20 percent

China Copper Ore Imports to Rise 20%, Trafigura Says Bloomberg: updated April 10,16:11

China, the world's biggest copper consumer, may increase imports of ore used to make the metal by 20 percent to a record this year, said Trafigura Beheer BV, the country's top supplier.

Purchases of so-called concentrate, or processed ore containing copper, may rise to 5.4 million metric tons from 4.5 million tons in 2007 as China expands in smelting, said Simon Collins, director of Trafigura Trading Shanghai Co., a unit of Trafigura. China would become the world's top buyer, surpassing Japan which bought 5.05 million tons last year.

China's 11.4 percent economic growth in 2007, the fastest in 13 years, fueled demand for copper and pushed prices to a record $8,820 a ton on the London Metal Exchange on March 6. Investment in cities and highways has spread to the center and west of the world's most populous country, increasing consumption of metals for power, homes, factories and cars.

``If you travel outside of Shanghai and Beijing to provincial capitals and second-tier cities, you'll see an enormous amount of development going on,'' Collins said by telephone from Shanghai April 4. ``I'm very bullish on China.''

Trafigura, a closely held commodities trader based in Amsterdam, is the largest seller of copper concentrate to China, supplying about 1 million tons a year, said Collins, who is responsible for metals and minerals operations in the country. The company sells more than 600,000 tons of lead and zinc ore, and about 1 million tons of alumina a year, ranking in the top five suppliers of these materials to China.

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