ABSTRACT: The prospect of China buying copper reserves is brewing in the market before Chinese leaders meet to discuss the next five-year economic and social development plan.

BEIJING, Oct. 21, the prospect of China buying copper reserves is brewing in the market ahead of a meeting of Chinese leaders to discuss the country's economic and social development plans for the next five years.

Stocks of commodities such as copper are expected to be approved at next week's meeting. Copper is widely used in power and construction, but domestic production can not meet demand.

Among the potential catalysts for the build up of reserves are deteriorating U.S. China relations and the new Crown Crisis, which highlights the need to ensure that Chinese stocks can withstand supply disruptions, said Leiden, an analyst at Citigroup. Over the next five years, Leiden said, Chinese state owned buyers could gradually buy 700,000 tons of copper, bringing inventories to 90 days of net imports, which is our basic forecast. China imports 10.9 m tonnes of copper, equivalent to 80 per cent of annual consumption of 13.5 m tonnes. China imports more than a third of the world's copper. The global copper market, including scrap copper, is estimated at between 28m and 30m tonnes.

China's imports of unwrought copper and finished products reached 4.99 million tons in the first nine months of 2020, up 41 percent year on year and surpassing the total for 2019. Some of the copper comes from exchange stocks. Some analysts said most of the copper exported to China this year was ultimately bought by the state reserve, which normally buys copper when prices are low to support domestic smelters.

But this year the Fed's performance has been different, said Loyde, a metals strategist at Macquarie. Copper prices recovered in May, but government purchases continued through September, according to import data. China accounts for 16 per cent of the world's copper production and consumes 50 per cent of the world's refined copper, a mismatch between supply and demand.

Source: Changjiang non-ferrous Metal Net

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