China's usage of copper is expected to grow faster than the rest of the world in 2007 and 2008, underscoring the strength of the country's appetite for the industrial metal, a global study group said on Tuesday. Top consumer China needs more of the metal, used in a wide range of products from plumbing equipment to computer chips, than it produces.
"Of course the big story is China," said Don Smale, secretary-general for the inter-governmental International Copper Study Group. China's usage of copper is expected to grow by 23 percent year-on-year in 2007, and by 6 percent in 2008, he told Reuters in an interview. The figures are higher than ICSG forecasts in October, which did not include a breakdown for China. In October, ICSG said it expected refined copper usage in 2007 to increase by 5.2 percent to 18 million tonnes.
It projected refined copper usage in 2008 to rise year-on-year by 3.8 percent to 18.7 million tonnes. China has recently been conspicuous by its absence from world copper markets, although analysts say it is only a question of time when it returns as it needs the metal to build its infrastructure in the power and construction industries.