Copper futures slide amid market concerns over weak demand

Copper futures ended lower Friday on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE), mainly due to concerns over decreasing demand in China, Bloomberg reported Friday.

The most-traded copper contract for delivery in July finished at 46,360 yuan ($7,438.43) per ton, down 180 yuan or 0.39 percent from Thursday. This was a decrease of 0.81 percent week-on-week, and the first weekly decline for five weeks. The trading volume declined by 58,440 lots compared to Thursday's 377,430 lots.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said during a meeting in Beijing with Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, that it will not be easy to maintain a growth rate of 7.5 percent, according to a report by Xinhua News Agency Thursday.

"Metals fell as the economic outlook in China remains less optimistic, with few signals of a big recovery," Fang Junfeng, an analyst at Shanghai-based Shanghai CIFCO Futures Co, was quoted as saying Friday by Bloomberg.

In addition, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Friday, 56 out of 70 major cities in China saw a rise in prices of new homes month-on-month in March, down from 57 in February.

Also, property with a total area of 201.11 million square meters was sold in the first quarter this year, down 3.8 percent year-on-year, data from the NBS showed.

The slowing trend in the Chinese property market is one of the main factors behind investors' pessimistic sentiment toward the copper market, according to a report released Friday by Beijing-based Hongyuan Futures Co.

A report by Reuters Friday said that concerns are growing over credit problems for consumers of copper, particularly after the default of Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science and Technology Co in March, which was the first-ever domestic bond default.