Copper edges up as key China data lift sentiment

SINGAPORE — London copper prices edged up on Friday after two sessions of losses, lifted by better-than-expected data from China — the world’s biggest consumer of the malleable metal.

China on Friday announced a slew of economic data for 2019, including gross domestic product, industrial production and fixed-asset investments, which are closely tracked by industrial metals participants.

Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up 0.4% at $6,300 a ton, as of 0703 GMT.

The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) recovered from early losses to trade flat at 49,250 yuan ($7,180.03) a ton following the release of the key economic data.

“This (data) provides China government a lot of flexibility on how to protect growth. At the same time, market sentiment is improved after the signing of a Phase 1 trade deal,” said analyst Helen Lau of Argonaut Securities.

Capping gains were concerns whether China’s recovery phase would sustain.

“The economy had lots of government support last year. Can it do on its own this year?” Ms. Lau said, adding that there is increasing concerns about bad debts.

Industrial output grew 6.9% in December from last year, the strongest pace in nine months and beating analysts’ expectations that growth would have dipped to 5.9% from 6.2% in November.

Fixed-asset investment rose 5.4% for the full year, higher than expectations of a 5.2% increase.

China’s economic growth slowed to its weakest in nearly 30 years in 2019, but in line with expectation, while the economy ended the year on a firmer note as trade tensions eased.

Copper production last year in Peru, the world’s no. 2 copper producer, rose 4% annually to 2.5 million tons.

China’s annual aluminum production fell for the first time in 10 years in 2019 to 35.04 million tons on softer demand and large-scale smelter outages, but December output of 3.04 million tons was the second-highest monthly figure on record.

Volkswagen AG is set to take a 20% stake in Chinese electric vehicle battery maker Guoxuan High-tech Co. Ltd. as the German firm accelerates its electric push into China.

LME aluminum was unchanged at $1,812 a ton; nickel rose 0.9% to $13,895 a ton; zinc fell 0.5% to $2,410.50 a ton; while lead eased 0.1% to $2,001 a ton. —