Singapore 19/01/2016 - China’s production of ten major nonferrous metals fell 4.6 percent year-on-year and 4.7 percent month-on-month to 4.23 million tonnes in December, according to data released by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.
This marks the first year-on-year monthly decline for Chinese nonferrous metal production since December 2010.
Output of the metals had started slowing since August this year. Year-on-year production growth had slowed from 1.4 percent in November, 2.6 percent in October, 6.3 percent in September and 9.4 percent in August. Production was at 4.44 million tonnes in November.
Production of the metals totalled 50.9 million tonnes in 2015, up 5.8 percent from the previous year.
NBS did not provide a breakdown of the production.
China’s alumina output increased 3.5 percent year-on-year to five million tonnes in December, taking full year production to 58.98 million tonnes. This is up 9.6 percent year-on-year.
Industrial production in the country’s nonferrous metal smelting and fabricating industry had risen 11.7 percent year-on-year in December and 11.3 percent year-on-year in 2015.
China's overall industrial production growth was at 5.9 percent year-on-year in December, which was slightly below market forecast of six percent and November’s growth of 6.2 percent. The full year 2015 growth was at 6.1 percent.