The most-traded July copper on the Shanghai Futures Exchange gained 0.3 percent to end at 45,110 yuan ($7,278) a tonne on Friday with prices unlikely to stage a sharp recovery unless Chinese demand picks up. Shanghai nickel fell 1.4 percent to 100,070 yuan a tonne. "Copper has performed relatively well since the sell-off in January, so going forward with prices already relatively elevated, it's hard to see how things can go higher unless we see significant uplift in demand," said Daniel Hynes, analyst at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group.
China's imports of unwrought copper and copper alloy were 380,000 tonnes in April, taking imports in the first four months of the year to 1.35 million tonnes, down 14.7 percent from a year ago. But the monthly import figure has increased since February. "If Chinese consumers become comfortable with the outlook in the second half of the year, they'll move beyond restocking activity to actually (boosting) production of finished products which would be the real kicker for demand and push prices higher," said Hynes.
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