the stock has been deliberately kept low

China's refined copper consumption in the second half or continue to grow
Following China's refined copper consumption in the first half of 2013 increased by more than 5% after the second half may also increase due to expected Chinese government will boost economic growth and support the power industry, boost copper consumption.
Industry sources said that such growth could help revive China's copper imports, thereby supporting the international price of copper. Copper producers and downstream consumer side is expected that the Chinese authorities will be encouraged to include the electricity sector, including through infrastructure investment to support economic growth in the second half, rather than relying on stimulus measures. Power industry accounts for about half of China's copper consumption. Antaike (Antaike) chief copper analyst Yang Changhua, said the first half of refined copper consumption increased by 5.9% from a year earlier to 392 million tons, and in the second half could grow to 418 million tons. This means that the second half of the copper consumption will be increased by 5% compared to the same period last year, 6.6 percent higher than the first half.
He said that if there is evidence of government support to the forging of refined copper as a raw material suppliers will begin to increase inventory, he said, adding that in the past six months, the stock has been deliberately kept low. A manufacturing purchasing managers said that many suppliers are now forging copper stocks increased intention to be higher than in the first half. The factory used to produce copper strips electronic products.
"The second half copper demand may be better than many people expected on the market and not a lot of copper, in the past few months also reduced inventory," that this manager said. He was not authorized to the media and requested anonymity.
Industry sources said that in the past quarter domestic inventory reduction and scrap shortage means increasing domestic demand will push up imports. Chinese copper production of raw molybdenum plating, 30% comes from scrap. This name factory manager, said the second quarter of forging suppliers have increased their purchases of refined copper instead of copper, copper shortage will further increase the demand for refined copper for the second half. Three different metals manufacturer's executives said, scrap shortage means that China's refined copper production this year may not be more than 2012 years of 5.6 million tons. One of the executives said, in August, September and October on imports should be strong, because the consumption peak season is from September until the beginning of November.