By BUSINESS REPORTER –
THE prices of copper in London firmed yesterday as the United States (US) dollar lost steam.
Similarly, Shanghai copper recovered from a drop in the previous session to trade marginally higher.
REUTERS reports that London copper hit a two-week low overnight, weighed down by a stronger dollar, which encouraged sellers in the benchmark US dollar-denominated contract.
The prices for Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up by 0.5 per cent at $7,160 a tonne, after closing almost unchanged in the previous session.
Prices topped out at $7,312.50 a tonne on December 28 2017, the highest since January, 2014.
The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange ended 0.75-per cent higher at 55,010 yuan ($8,458.91) a tonne.
It dropped 0.9 per cent on Monday.
As China tightens restrictions on imports of foreign waste, Chinese metal recyclers and even smelters like Jiangxi Copper Co are increasingly looking to use Southeast Asian countries as an alternative location for the processing of copper scrap.
An affiliate of Qatari conglomerate Aamal Co plans to build three factories to produce copper wire, aluminium bars and drums for cables, projects that could make the country more self-reliant in the face of an embargo by other Arab states.
