Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Copper rose in New York and London, extending last week’s gains, on speculation that China, the world’s largest consumer, will keep buying the metal. The Asian nation is due to report this week on last month’s imports of metals. Inbound shipments climbed to a record in the first half and were up from a year earlier in July and August. Economic growth may have surpassed 8 percent in the third quarter, Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said Oct. 9. “Unless the Chinese data are disastrous, we’ll have good support,” David Thurtell, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in London, said by phone. Metals may also gain from speculation that the dollar may weaken as central banks shift reserves to euros and yen and away from the U.S. currency, he said. December-delivery copper added 0.8 percent to $2.861 a pound on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex unit as of 8:23 a.m. local time. The contract rose 5.8 percent last week after five declines. Copper for three-month delivery advanced as much as $70, or 1.1 percent, to $6,305 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. Chinese demand and a weaker dollar helped copper to double this year. The Dollar Index, a six-currency gauge of the greenback’s strength, has lost about 6 percent. The LME Index of the six main industrial metals traded on the exchange has added 70 percent, driven by lead and copper. About 4,000 traders, consumers, producers and hedge funds gather in London this week for the annual LME week to attend presentations on metals from aluminum to zinc. ‘Better Idea’ “People will have a better idea later this week about next year’s fundamentals,” Thurtell said. Copper and other industrial metals may extend gains in the first quarter, partly as funds buy more metals for the annual re-weighting of commodity indexes, said Paul Robinson, general manager of non-ferrous metals at research company CRU. “There is big potential upside for the first quarter” in prices, Robinson said today in London. “Greater weighting of industrial metals has got to be very favorable.” LME-monitored inventories of copper rose 0.2 percent to 347,375 tons. Including those tracked by Shanghai and New York bourses, they totaled 487,692 tons, up 26 percent this year. Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators reduced bets on lower prices in New York-traded copper futures by 24 percent to 4,771 contracts in the week ended Oct. 6, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Nickel Advance Nickel rose 1.3 percent to $19,000 ton. Demand for the metal, used in stainless steelmaking, will rise 4 percent a year through 2013, the fastest among the main industrial metals, according to Jeffrey Christian, managing director of researcher CPM Group. Among other LME metals for three-month delivery, zinc rose 1 percent to $2,059.50 a ton. A surplus of the metal, used to rust-proof steel, is set to shrink to 191,000 tons in 2010 from 441,000 tons this year, Michael Widmer, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a report. Zinc prices will increase as global economic growth expands next year, boosting usage by 6.7 percent, he said. The metal has jumped 73 percent on the LME in 2009. Aluminum added 0.9 percent to $1,926 a ton, and tin lost 0.7 percent to $14,700 a ton. Lead gained 1.7 percent to $2,288 a ton. To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Chanyaporn Chanjaroen in London at cchanjaroen@bloomberg.net

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