China’s moves to rein in inflation could temporarily derail copper’s spectacular bull market, leading miners have warned.
Diego Hernández, chief executive of Codelco, the Chilean state-owned copper giant that is the world’s top miner of the red metal, told the Financial Times that China was a “worry” in the short term because of the government’s measures to cool the economy and the high level of copper inventories in the country.
China, the world’s largest copper consumer accounting for 40 per cent of global demand, has been largely absent from the copper market for months as a combination of high prices and tightening credit conditions forced manufacturers to cut back on purchases.