Source: Reuters.com                      Date: 10 August, 2010

China's copper demand is expected to grow at 8 percent this year from last year, and at a similar pace next year, Mr. Rodrigo Toro, a senior sales executive of Chile's Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, has said. "The growth of demand in China is practically unstoppable," he said, adding that Beijing's tighter monetary policy was a healthy dose to control the country's breakneck growth.

"We are happy to see the demand in China will continue at very healthy rate, not as big as would be at 12 percent GDP growth, because producers would not be able to respond to that additional demand." He said the global copper demand growth would be 4 percent this year, but added it might improve next year if the economy picked up pace.

"Treatment charges for copper concentrate will remain extremely low for quite some time. The overcapacity in smelting and refining is so big that the demand for concentrate will exceed largely the possibility of supply of copper concentrate," he said.