The most-traded May copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange climbed 1.1 percent to 61,060 yuan ($9,700) a tonne on Tuesday. "I believe Chinese demand is recovering but at a very, very slow pace," said Judy Zhu, commodity analyst at Standard Chartered in Shanghai, citing a modest drop in Shanghai copper stockpiles last week.
"Chinese demand is going to improve in the weeks ahead on seasonal factors, but the recovery should be slow because some copper consumers, like home appliance makers, are dealing with huge stockpiles due to weak order books from both domestic and overseas markets." Copper inventories in Shanghai warehouses dropped by around 1,000 tonnes to 216,086 tonnes last week from a near 10-year high above 217,000 tonnes the previous week.