Singapore 13/07/2016 - Chinese imports of unwrought copper and copper products fell 1.7 percent month-on-month to 420,000 tonnes in June, according to preliminary data published by the country's General Administration of Customs on Wednesday.
This took imports to 2.74 million tonnes in January-June, up 22 percent year-on-year.
Market participants had expected imports to slow after March - arbitrage opportunities between the Shanghai Futures Exchange and the London Metal Exchange have been absent since late in January.
Customs did not provide separate import figures for unwrought copper and copper products.
Chinese copper ore and concentrate imports fell 5.6 percent month-on-month to 1.35 million tonnes in June, taking year-to-date imports to 8.04 million tonnes, up 34.7 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile, China’s unwrought aluminium and aluminium product exports slipped 7.9 percent month-on-month to 380,000 tonnes in June. This took exports to 2.28 million tonnes in the first half of the year, down 9.4 percent on the same period of last year.
Customs did not provide separate export figures for unwrought aluminium and aluminium products.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)