Copper prices fell in London on Monday, paring last week's 1.8 percent rise and Shanghai also dipped, tracking losses in equity markets and pressured by fresh worries about near-term Chinese demand for industrial raw materials. Shanghai's most-active copper futures contract, June, lost 1.40 percent or 1,010 yuan to 71,350 yuan a tonne.
Confidence expressed in the Chinese media that the nation would cap inflation below the full-year target of 4 percent worried some investors. The threat of Chinese tightening has been a drag on markets on the risk that rising interest rates and tighter lending would sap demand for raw materials. But the front page editorial in the People's Daily cited a number of factors as favourable to slowing the upward momentum of consumer prices, including an oversupply of industrial products, abundant grain stocks and large foreign currency reserves.